


The Fire in Which We Burn

by primalrage



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bottom Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Emotional Sex, M/M, Porn With Plot, Time Travel, Time travel creates an alternate universe, Top Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, but it's sort of NOT an AU too?, mention of canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-06-25 08:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19741756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primalrage/pseuds/primalrage
Summary: A young Jack Morrison finds himself falling for fellow soldier Gabriel Reyes, despite that Reyes keeps having strange flickers of memory loss and mood swings. Unbeknownst to him, these are not new side effects to the drugs they are given as a part of the SEP, as he imagines they are. Instead, the truth is that Reaper, from the canon timeline, finds himself suddenly unable to control his powers - sometimes, when he shadow steps, he is flung back into his own past. His continued presence in his old body is changing the relationship he had with Jack Morrison in ways that he is helpless to stop. And he will have to make a choice - should he use his knowledge of the future to help Overwatch, or to destroy it?





	1. The First Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a long one-shot instead of a chaptered fic, but I ended up with the first few handfuls of scenes that were edited and untouched for weeks and scenes at the end that are taking me AGES to edit (since we have such huge gaps in the lore, it's been hard trying to keep things semi-canon without just making massive chunks of stuff up). So I decided to upload this in chapters instead, so that I could at least get the finished bits up and out of my way. I may be slower to update than I was with previous fics, so be sure to bookmark if you like what you see! (and, of course, as always - reviews and kudos are super appreciated)

Jack Morrison is asleep when the screaming starts.

The sound reaches through his dreams, grabs him, and throws him into wakefulness. He has seen too much violent combat to sleep through screams like this. His eyes fly open, and he sits upright in the bed, listening to the chilling noises that can be heard through the wall. Is it coming from the hallway? Another dorm? He can tell they are the screams of a man. They are not screams of terror, but some emotion more bestial. Jack expects this on a battlefield, but not here, in the dormitory shared by the men and women a part of the Soldier Enhancement Program. It has always been quieter here than his nights in the barracks, when beer pong tournaments sometimes broke out at three o'clock in the morning and soldiers with PTSD often yelled out into the darkness from their nightmares. Maybe this is normal, he wonders. He _is_ the newest recruit, after all, and hasn't been living in the SEP building for more than a couple of months.

The silence that falls next is eerie. He glances at the alarm clock on his nightstand. 2:14 A.M. He doesn't pay attention to the cycles of the moon, but it is either full or close to it, because there is enough light coming in from his window to see by as he slides out from under his blanket and goes to the closet, where his bathrobe hangs. He pulls it on over his near nakedness, ties it closed, and tries to quiet his heavy breathing so that he can listen. 

Something crashes into the wall, so hard that it shakes his entire room. Jack jumps, nearly knocking over his bookshelf in fright. The screaming begins again, and he can hear the sounds of destruction. Objects being thrown, furniture being broken. It sounds like the running of the bulls is happening in the dormitory next door. No, these sounds are definitely not normal. Something is wrong. He pulls his robe tighter around his broad shoulders and hurries out into the hall. The next room over, the one that the noises are coming from, belongs to a man named Gabriel Reyes. Jack has had very limited interactions with the man, but they have been more than enough to make Jack twice as uneasy about investigating further. Of course they aren't allowed weapons in their rooms, but Reyes doesn't need weapons to be dangerous. In a program of elite, nearly super-powered soldiers, Reyes is the toughest and the fiercest. They are close in age, Reyes only a few years older, and probably close to the same size, too, but Jack is still getting used to his new muscles. He isn't sure if his they will listen to the commands from his brain, doesn't think he can reel in his terror enough to raise a fist and knock on the door, let alone manage a potential confrontation with Gabriel Reyes. If it came down to a fight, Jack would undoubtedly lose against the man who was built more like a wildcat than a human being. Reyes is a predator.

There comes another lull in the commotion from behind the door. Jack's hands clench into fists at his sides. Now he only needs to raise one and bring it down upon the wood. He does, but it takes every ounce of his focus. 

"Reyes?" he calls out after the knock, "It's Jack Morrison, your neighbor. Is everything okay in there?" 

The door is flung open. A hand reaches out into the dark hallway, wraps around Jack's throat, and jerks him into the dorm room as easily as if Jack weighed no more than a ragdoll. The room is dark, lit only by moonlight and the glow that bleeds from the television, but it is enough to see by. Gabriel Reyes snarls at him, and Jack knows he has made a mistake. He has been lured into the lion's den. He will be eaten for sure. The man pants like a spent racehorse through teeth clenched in a vicious snarl; he looms in so close to Jack's face that Jack can smell the spearmint of his toothpaste. The man lifts Jack up by the throat, and Jack feels his Adam's apple crush into his windpipe in the man's grip. He clings to Reyes's fist, trying to pry his fingers off. The man's hands are bleeding. Jack can smell it from him, can feel it seeping down his neck and chest. It's no wonder why. Behind him, the room is in shambles. The coffee table has been smashed to pieces. Holes have been punched in the walls. Knickknacks have been pulled from shelves and thrown around the room. A couch cushion has been torn, its fluffy white insides scattered around the apartment like snowfall. 

" _What have you done to me?"_ Reyes yells.

Jack is far from a coward; you don't get to be in the SEP if you are a coward. But in that moment, Jack fears for his life. 

"Reyes..." Jack manages to croak out, but even if he could find his voice, he doesn't know what to say in his defense. What _has_ he done to Reyes? Jack has never done _anything_ to Reyes; in fact, he's convinced this is the first conversation they have ever had together, the first time they've ever been so close.

And _damn_ is Reyes close... He's looking at Jack hard, _really_ looking at him, and his narrowed eyes begin to soften, until they are wide. Wide and amazed. He lowers Jack to the carpet, and his hands roam from Jack's neck to his face. His fingertips graze Jack's jaw, his cheekbones, his lips, leaving dark streaks of blood across his pale face. He caresses Jack's eyelids, the bridge of his nose, and then his hands slide up into Jack's hair. He stares at the golden locks with open awe. No one has _ever_ touched Jack like this before. Even his ex-boyfriend, in their most intimate of moments, never studied Jack with such intensity. 

"How did you... What..." Reyes trails off, unable to finish his sentence. He peels open Jack's bathrobe, and Jack is left standing there stupidly in his briefs. He puts his palms to Jack's chest. Jack stands still, the weight and warmth of Reyes's palms on his chest is both wonderful and terrifying. "Jackie..."

_Jackie_? Jack flushes. No one has ever called him that before. He's honestly surprised that Reyes even knows his name at all. 

"R-Reyes?" He is breathless from the other man's nearness. It occurs to him, like a punch in the stomach, that Reyes is undeniably handsome. One of the most handsome men Jack has ever seen in person, outside of magazine models and photo-edited celebrities. The cliched tall, dark, and handsome. The bones of his face are like a sculpture. His eyes, when not angry, are so deep and dark that Jack feels he could throw himself into them and happily drown. He realizes those eyes look sad somehow, like Reyes sees something in him that makes him ache. "Is everything okay? I heard you yelling..."

"How are you so young, Jack? What have you done to yourself?" Reyes whispers. 

"I don't understand what-"

" _Stop playing stupid!"_ It is like a switch has been flipped, and the gentle Reyes is gone, replaced by the dangerous one. Reyes's hand closes around Jack's throat again, pinning him to the wall. "How have you turned into a pretty Boy Scout again?"

"Reyes-"

" _And stop calling me Reyes!_ " he roars, "It's Gabriel! _Gabe!_ I don't know what fucking game you're playing at, Jack, but I'm not falling for it! Quit playing stupid! I'm going to fucking _kill_ you!"

He will kill me, Jack realizes. He is out of his mind. Jack will be crushed to pieces like the coffee table. "Okay. Okay. Gabe," Jack says, trying to soothe him. The name feels foreign and inappropriate on his tongue, "L-let me bandage up your hands, okay? And make you a cup of coffee. We'll figure this out."

Gabe pulls his hands away from Jack's neck and stares down at them, as though realizing for the first time in his life that he has hands at all. He studies the backs of them, the bitten-short fingernails and the raw scrapes across his knuckles, then flips them over to gawk at the wrinkles and bloodied cuts across his palms. The whole time, they are shaking, and the shaking only gets worse. Jack wonders if maybe he hasn't noticed that he was wounded before. As he watches Gabe, he sees his eyes narrow, the rage return. Jack presses himself flat against the wall, bracing himself. 

" _WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?"_

The shout is so loud that Jack's sure the whole building must have heard it. Gabriel Reyes swings his arm. Before Jack even understands what has happened, his face explodes in pain. He tastes blood in his mouth. The room swims before him. He clutches at his head, moaning and dizzy. He is sure that he will collapse in a faint, he feels his vision fade in and out of clarity. He breathes hard, steadies himself. His legs are trembling under his weight, threatening to give out. But in a minute or so, the pain subsides, and he uses the wall to pull himself upright. Gabe is gone, but Jack can hear him howling like an animal from somewhere else in the apartment. Jack has never heard a human make a sound like that before. For a long time, he stares at the rectangle of light spilling into the dark hallway from the open bathroom door. He wonders if he should leave, go get help, and almost does, but then he hears the bathroom mirror shatter, and all the shards rain down upon the tiles. Gabe's yells turn into heaving, and Jack listens as he vomits into either the sink or toilet bowl. The sounds of wet hitting porcelain on top of the pain in his skull makes him nauseous himself. After a moment, the dorm goes quiet again. 

"R- Gabe? Do you want me to bring you some water?"

"Fuck you, Jack! I bet you think this is absolutely hilarious, don't you?" Gabe shouts back at him.

"Not at all. Please, let me help. What can I bring you?" Jack calls.

"A fucking calendar!" Gabe laughs.

Jack doesn't understand the joke, but he can't just stand there doing nothing. On the wall of Gabe's tiny kitchen is a calendar tacked up with pushpins. He steps deeper into the dorm, feeling like a sheep trespassing in a wolf's den, and takes the calendar down, shoving the pins back into their holes. He studies the calendar; he expects to catch a glimpse of Gabriel's personality from the calendar's theme, but he finds that there are no pictures of dogs in human clothing or miniatures of Manet paintings on the monthly pages. Each page is just a stark white background and the arrangement of the necessary squares. He sees Gabe's handwriting on some days - thick, dark letters written with excessive pressure, each with a subtle right slant. Gabe has been tracking which days they were given new shots or new pills to take. Even though the SEP experiments are kept confidential, especially to them, Gabe is trying to keep track of frequency and severity of symptoms in the only way he can. Jack's fear ebbs at the sight of these scribbled words and numbers, replaced with pity. Of course. This must be a symptom of some new drug. Memory loss, irritability, confusion, and now the vomiting. Were nights like this in store for him, as well? He holds the calendar against his bare chest and creeps to the bathroom. Peering inside, he finds glass everywhere, and there are bloody footprints across the tiles from where Gabe has stepped in the shards. The man is sitting on the bath mat with his back to the tub. He is leaning over the toilet bowl, clinging to it like a piece of floating debris in the ocean, and it is full of foamy bile.

"Gabe?" Jack says, offering him the calendar. 

Gabe's eyes are torn from the toilet, and he glances at the date. He starts to laugh, a joyless sound, and he throws the calendar back at Jack with a scowl. "Was this your plan, Jack?" he asks, "To torment me? To make me think I'm crazy? You have every little detail planned out, don't you? No. No, I don't think you're sick enough to plan something this insane. This has the fucking monkey written all over it. Am I right? Or was it the cowboy?"

"Gabe," Jack says, and he picks up the calendar, using it to sweep aside the shards of glass so that he can cross the bathroom to Gabe's side, "I don't know what you're talking about. Please, let me help you. Let me get you to a doctor." 

He offers Gabe his hand, but the man only glares up at him. "No doctor," he snarls, "I don't want your fucking help. This is all your fault."

Jack closes the toilet lid so that he doesn't have to look into the bowl, and he sits down on the seat. Gabriel, his face sweaty and pallid, rests his cheek against Jack's leg. He is so comfortable doing it, like they've been friends for years. Jack stiffens at the contact. "G-Gabe," he says, "I don't know why you're upset, but I promise, I haven't done anything to you. I want to help you."

Gabe sighs. He stares at the wall, all emotion drained from his face. He looks too tired to be angry anymore. "You aren't clever enough to pull something like this off anyway," he mutters, "and you'd tell me, wouldn't you? Even after everything that's happened... you'd tell me, _right_?"

Jack doesn't answer; he doesn't have any idea what to say.

After a few minutes in silence, Gabe uses Jack's leg to pull himself up to his feet. He sways a little, unsteady, but Jack grabs him around the waist and helps him to the couch. As he lowers Gabe onto the cushions, Gabe looks up at him, his dark eyes still so empty. "Does it ever piss you off, Jack? How this all ended? We had the whole fucking world eating out of the palms of our hands, and now look at us." He gestures vaguely around at his dorm, at the mess of splintered furniture and scattered pillow stuffing. "In the end, will it all be worth it?"

Jack takes a throw blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over Gabriel, who gives a snort of laughter and rolls over, hiding his face in the cushions. For a moment, Jack just stares at the back of Gabe's back; through his t-shirt, Jack can see the definition of his back and the way the fabric strains over his broad shoulders. He fights the urge to place a hand there, and, instead, slinks back to his own room, taking the first aid kit out from beneath his bathroom sink. When he returns, Gabe is on his back, staring up at the ceiling and rubbing his hands over his cheeks. "Is this permanent?" he asks.

Even though Jack has no clue, he shakes his head. "You'll feel better in the morning, Gabe." He is careful not to step on anything as he sits down beside the couch, the carpet rough against his bare thighs. He opens the first aid kid, taking out disinfectant and bandages. For several silent minutes, he works to fix up Gabe's hands, and Gabe is as compliant as a child. It takes Jack a while to realize that, at some point, the other man had fallen asleep as he had been dabbing at his cuts with pads of gauze. 

* * *

The next morning, Jack wakes to an unfamiliar alarm going off. His face is swollen and sore, and he doesn't remember what happened to it. Why is he in his bathrobe? Why is he on the floor? Where is that alarm coming from? 

"What the fuck?" a voice behind him says, " _Morrison?_ "

Jack sits up and turns, his face colliding directly into Gabriel Reyes's groin, and both men swear and scramble apart from each other. Gabe looks furious. 

"Why are you in my damn living room? What the fuck did you do to the place? All my goddamned furniture!" he snarls, and he snatches Jack by the arm. 

Jack dangles in his vice-tight grip, unable to believe that this is happening. "Gabe, you don't remember?"

" _Gabe?_ You're making up nicknames now? What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you drunk, Rookie? You have two seconds to start explaining why you trashed my place before I beat your ass to a bloody goddamned pulp!" 

The alarm is still screeching from somewhere, and Jack can hardly think over the noise. "You did this yourself, remember?"

"Clearly not, Morrison. Please enlighten me."

"I woke up in the middle of the night and you were screaming and destroying things. You didn't remember what day it was. You were acting strange. I bandaged your hands and feet, and I guess I fell asleep on the floor..." He finally notices that he's standing there in his underwear, with his bathrobe wide open. He jerks his arm away from Gabe and straightens his robe. 

"You're shitting me."

"Not at all," Jack insists, "Just ask anyone on this floor. I'm sure they all heard you losing your mind at 2 o'clock in the morning."

Gabe is still scowling, but the fire in his eyes has been reduced to smoldering ashes. He circles the room, studying the destruction. "I don't remember a single damn thing..." he mutters. 

"It must have been a side-effect of something that they gave you," Jack suggests, to which Gabe just nods, still surveying the room in disbelief. "You were speaking incoherently. Talking about cowboys and monkeys and... I don't know. You kept acting like we knew each other really well."

"Cowboys?" Gabriel repeats, and he laughs. "Fuck me. I'm losing my mind. Listen, Rookie, how about you tell me everything over a cup of coffee? I feel like shit. I need some caffeine. But you're buying."

Jack assumes this is some joke, but Gabe wanders through the trashed dorm, disappearing into a room at the end of the hall. The alarm stops. Jack stands in place, wondering if he should leave, but Gabe emerges, maybe a minute later, in his uniform for physical training. When he sees Jack still standing there, gawking at him like an idiot, he scowls. "Well? You gonna get dressed? We only have about 45 minutes."

Jack normally gives himself an hour to get ready in the mornings. He is aware of the fact that he hasn't taken his daily shower, that his hair is surely a mess, that his face is probably bruised. But he doesn't want to say no. _It isn't a date_ , he tells himself as he scurries to his room next door. But still, after he tosses on his uniform in a rush, he can't deny that Gabe is so handsome, and has a nice back, and that the way he had called him _Jackie_ had made his heart melt. _This is not a date_ , he repeats in his head. But it won't hurt anyone if he privately pretends it is. 

* * *

Gabe drinks his coffee black, with a double shot of espresso. He also orders a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich with extra bacon. Not a cheap date, but Jack doesn't mind. He notices there are some familiar faces picking up coffee that morning, all of them visibly surprised to see the wholesome farm boy rookie having breakfast with the most intimidating soldier in the SEP, and possibly in the entire United States Army. If Gabe notices the stares they are receiving, he shows no signs of caring. 

Jack lets his own coffee grow cold as he tells Gabriel all the details of the night before. He considers sugar-coating the story, breaking it to Gabe easy, but, instead, every single detail comes tumbling out. Gabe keeps glancing down at his bandaged hands, as though they hold some answers that they will not tell. 

Jack is surprised to find that Gabe is funny; he has a dark, dry streak of humor and constantly responds to everything with sarcasm. Jack laughs at his jokes a little harder than he should have, but it has been so long since he felt like laughing. The Omnic Crisis weighs heavy upon all of the soldiers in the SEP, even a foolishly optimistic newbie like Jack Morrison. He wants their breakfast to go on forever. He could sit there staring at Gabriel Reyes for the rest of his life. The man's skin is nearly the same creamy shade that Jack likes his coffee, and the premature wrinkles around his eyes and the thick scars across his face just make him look so rugged and mature, and the fade of the shaved sides of his head grows so perfectly into the stubble along his jawline, and Jack wonders if the coarse hair of his goatee tickles when he kisses someone, and those lips go so thin when he smiles but when he scowls - which he does most of the time - they are plump, and Jack just - 

"Hello? Earth to Jackie?" Gabriel asks, waving a hand in front of Jack's vacant eyes. 

Jack jumps in his seat, his knees jerking the whole table, and he feels the heat of his flushed cheeks. The embarrassment of knowing that he is blushing enough for Gabriel to see just turns him all the redder. _Jackie_ , he thinks to himself. He never told Gabe that he had called him that nickname last night. This is something Gabe is recalling on his own. He smiles.

"Where the Hell did you go?" Gabe rolls his perfect mahogany eyes. "Have you been listening to a thing I said?"

"Sorry," Jack says, "I must be tired from last night..."

"Yeah, about that," Gabriel says, staring down into his empty coffee cup, studying the stains left along the sides and bottom of the Styrofoam, "Can we keep this between us, Jack? I think it's better if they don't know..."

Jack, who has never told a single soul, besides his ex-boyfriend, that he is gay, simply nods and says, "I can keep a secret."

"Thanks. I owe you one," Gabriel mutters, and he sighs in relief. Jack watches, hypnotized, as his shoulders rise with the inhale and relax with the exhale. 

Gabriel leans his elbows on the table now, his chin propped in one hands. He is smiling in a gentle, fond sort of way that Jack has never seen on his face before. Jack likes this at-ease Gabriel Reyes. Before he can stop himself, he says, "You can pay me back by buying me dinner."

Gabe smirks. "You hitting on me, Morrison?"

"N-no!"

"Calm down, Blondie. I'm just fucking with you."

_God, I wish you were_ , Jack thinks.

"I can't really tonight," Gabe says, "I need to clean up my place. But maybe tomorrow night?"

Tomorrow is Friday. Jack isn't sure what he expects it will be like, but dinner on a Friday night with Gabriel Reyes has him practically floating from his seat. 

"You know, I can help you pick up. If you need a hand," Jack offers.

Gabe shakes his head. He starts to stuff his trash inside of his coffee cup, and Jack realizes their moment is nearly over. "Nah, I'm good," Gabe says, "You've done more than enough already."

"I-I really don't mind." Jack hopes he doesn't sound as nervous and desperate as he feels. 

"I'll give you a call if I need a hand." He digs a cellphone from his bag and Jack's eyes nearly pop out of his skull. Gabe opens a new contact and slides the phone across the table to Jack, whose hands are suddenly sweaty and clumsy, and it takes him a moment of honest thought before he can actually remember his own phone number. 

_It is not a date_ , he keeps telling himself, but his heart is racing all the same. 

* * *

Jack just has drills that day, and it's a blessing. He doesn't think he could handle new pills or injections while trying to make sense of Gabriel Reyes. The man doesn't pay Jack much attention, and he tries not to feel too disappointed. What did he expect? That they'd be best friends all of a sudden? This wasn't high school back in Bloomington. It amazes Jack that he remembers nothing from the night before, and Jack again feels renewed fear this may be a side effect of the experiments that he has in store in his own future. Will he wake up one morning with a destroyed dorm and bloodied limbs? How many others in the program have already had this happen to them? Or is Gabe the first, and something specific about him is reacting in a unique and terrifying way? 

The thing that Jack fears the most is that one day he might forget _everything_. 

That night, back in his room, it's almost impossible not to wonder about Gabe on the other side of their shared wall. Jack sits down to watch some streamed shows on his television, but his eyes move away from the screen and focus instead on the wall. The wall. _The wall_. It's the only thing keeping them in their own worlds. They could be jerking off five feet away from each other and neither of them would ever know. Thinking about it makes Jack's mouth dry, makes his skin tingle. What might Gabe be doing over there? Is he asleep? Making dinner? Showering? And then he finds himself wondering what body wash Gabe might use, or the products he styles his hair with. And, of course, thinking about showering has him thinking about exposed skin. And Gabe's really is the most perfect complexion in the world. Jack can't think of a proper comparison. It's really the most lovely color he's ever seen in -

The whole apartment shakes with the force of a single, explosive bang on Jack's front door. It's so loud, so powerful, that Jack's surprised it didn't splinter the wood. Jack rises, his legs weak under him, and he hurries to the door, afraid of what he might find waiting for him on the other side. 

"G-Gabe?"

He is all rage and violence again, a vein bulging in his forehead, his eyes dark and wild. No. It's happening again. Jack takes a step back into his apartment. What can he do? He feels like he has to go get help, but he made a _promise_. 

"I can't put this fucking table together! The instructions are in fucking Danish or something! I don't have the patience for this shit!" Gabe snarls, and then he trails off into Spanish, throwing his arms over his head. 

Jack smiles, relieved. He goes over and spends the rest of the night assembling a new coffee table in Gabe's living room, trying to make sense of the instructions. Gabe swears over bolts and screws, then gives up and sits on the couch drinking a beer and just watching. Jack doesn't mind, because Gabe has him laughing the whole time. He can't believe how Gabe does it so effortlessly, because he knows Gabe isn't _trying_ to be funny, but somehow the things he says gives Jack a warm feeling in his chest and he can't help but chuckle at everything. Gabe decides to order them Chinese, and by the time the food arrives, all four legs have been successfully bolted into place. They sit on the carpet, on either side of the new table, sharing cartons of General Tso's chicken and Mongolian beef. 

"This doesn't count as the dinner you owe me," Jack says, flashing him a grin.

Gabe's eyes narrow, his gaze sharpens. "You're really pushing it, Blondie." But there's a playful curl at the corners of his mouth.

"Oh, you have something..." Jack isn't sure why he does it, cannot believe his boldness, but he leans over the table to wipe a fleck of rice from Gabe's mouth. The brush of his thumb over Gabe's lip is like a electric charge to his heart. It's too late to stop it now. The unimaginable has happened. He has a crush on Gabriel Reyes.


	2. Not a Date

The restaurant is constructed in a fake adobe style, but the illusion of authenticity is broken by the neon beer signs and strings of lights shaped like chili peppers. Chatter and laughter bleed out into the night every time the door swings open, and reggaeton music blasts from overhead speakers, adding to the noise. Gabe leads Jack through the restaurant, dodging waiters balancing trays of sizzling fajitas and pitchers of sickly-yellow margaritas, weaving between tables and past the bar, out onto a patio. Out here, too, it is designed to look real, like they have plucked the courtyard from some Mexican hacienda and planted it squarely in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A. There is a jungle of fake potted plants, and a three-tiered fountain shooting out water that reeks of chlorine, and the farthest wall is painted with a gigantic mural that Jack guesses is Aztec-inspired. However, Jack can barely see these details, because there are dozens and dozens of dancers out here - couples spinning each other while they hands roam each others bodies, sweaty men sloshing beer all over the floor, swaying hips and grinding pelvises. The display is dizzying to Jack, who has never seen people dance like this outside of movies and television shows.

They sit at a table at the edge of the commotion. Jack stares at all of the swaying, gyrating bodies and remembers the dances that were held in the gym of Bloomington High School. None of those evenings return to him as good memories. His mouth goes suddenly dry as he recalls the moment when, in the midst of their victory dance at Senior Prom, the newly elected Prom Queen had leaned in very close to him and whispered into his ear that she wanted to lose her virginity that night. Jack, mortified, had spent the rest of the event hiding from her in the boy's bathroom. 

His recollections are interrupted by the arrival of a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa, delivered by a petite Latina waitress with bleached blonde hair and sleeves of sugar skull tattoos. She recognizes Gabe and they break out into rapid-fire Spanish. Gabe is grinning and laughing; Jack can't help but feel jealous over how easily she draws these things out of him. Maybe they have slept together, he thinks, although he knows it's a stupid, petulant thought to have. But he supposes that her dark, thick lips and the strain of her shirt over her breasts are attractive, if you're into that kind of thing. He had been so excited over this dinner together, butterflies-in-his-stomach excited, but the memory of his Prom humiliation and the arrival of this woman whose presence lights up Gabe's features has deflated his mood. Gabe will never be his, he knows, and by pretending otherwise, all he is doing is hurting himself. 

She switches to English to take Jack's drink order, but Gabe interrupts and orders margaritas for them both. She winks at him and promises that they will be extra strong. As Jack watches her disappear into the throng, he has a fantasy of drinking until he feels untouchable by these negative emotions. No more self-doubt, no more jealousy. And then he will ask Gabriel to dance with him. In his mind, he sees them rutting together on the dance floor like horny animals. Gabe's hands on his hips. Gabe's mouth on his shoulder. The smell of tequila on them both as they work each other into a fever of desire. He imagines flashes of Gabe on top of him in the back seat of the cab, unbuckling his belt and sliding fingers into the bulging fabric of his pants. Another flash, this time he's bent over that new coffee table with his pants pulled down to his knees, and Gabe is - 

"Earth to Jackie?"

Jack jumps in his seat, his knees knocking into the underside of the table, shaking the whole thing. He is red-faced, fumbling, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "Sorry," he apologizes, "I was just thinking about how I've never been anywhere like this before."

"Yeah," Gabe says, looking out over the patio with a smile, "It reminds me of home."

"Home?" Jack asks, "Where is that?"

He expects Gabe to name some Spanish town that he has never heard of, some exotic place near a lost Aztec temple in the rain forest. But instead Gabe just leans back in his chair, shoves a chip in his mouth, and while he chews, simply says, "L.A."

Their margaritas are brought to them. They are nearly neon-yellow in the patio's light, fat crystals of salt around the rim, and served in a glass so big that Jack could bury his face in it and drown himself, which he considers doing when the waitress slips back into her private Spanish conversation with Gabe. Jack stares down at the drink and pushes the lime absentmindedly around the rim of his glass. It isn't until she has taken their orders and left them alone again that Jack feels strong enough to lift that mighty vessel to his lips and take the first long, lip-puckering sour sip. This is the first margarita he has ever had that wasn't strawberry flavored and more sugar than liquor. The tequila burns its way down his throat. 

Jack wasn't really aware that he had a plan, but, initially, things seem to feel like they're going according to it. Over a plate of nachos, they share embarrassing stories about other soldiers. Gabe can do a perfect impression of Simpson, who lives on their floor in the dorms and fights loudly with his girlfriend almost every single weekend, and sometimes on week nights, too. They finish their drinks and order a second round, even though the amount of liquid in Jack's gut leaves him feeling less solid. Jack's stories about growing up on his family's corn farm gets Gabe suddenly emotional about his dead grandmother's tamales. Jack leans his elbows on the table, propping his chin up in his hands, and he watches Gabe talk, unable to wipe the smile from his face or tear his eyes away. Gabe uses big, expressive hand gestures when he gets passionate about a subject, Jack notices. And the heat of the night has loosened a curl from the man's carefully swept back hair; it hangs out of place against his damp brow, beckoning Jack to come closer and tuck it back where it belongs. He does not. 

Jack stares at the movement of Gabe's mouth as they talk. His lips part and stretch, almost in slow motion. His tongue rolls against his teeth. Every syllable seems so kissable. Jack thinks it is time to ask Gabe to dance, as he's feeling a warm buzz from the alcohol, but then he realizes they are fighting about something. He understands this mid-shout, like he has flipped the television channel to a show at its climax and has no context for everything he has missed. What are they arguing about? But Gabe is smirking, even as he rolls his eyes, even as he shakes his head dismissively. "Just give it up, Jack! I promise you, I know more about Call of Duty than you do!" 

_What?_

The metaphorical radio station that his life is being broadcast on has a crappy and sensitive dial; it refuses to tune in properly. Everything fades in an out. They're trying to get a good selfie on Gabe's phone as they do shots of tequila. Where did the shots come from? What happened to their second margaritas? Are they gone already? At one point, a song comes on that Gabe knows the words to, and he sings it to Jack from across the table. His voice is deep and rich and gives Jack goosebumps. All Jack does is laugh and laugh, until he has tears swelled up in his eyes. He blinks them away, but then Gabe is across the patio, dancing with the waitress. Jack stares at them together. She looks like she's half his height. Gabe spins her. She moves her hips like she's been dancing her whole life. He has a hand on her ass. Jack, who had been clapping and cheering, falls quiet and thoughtful. He wants to know what those hands might feel like on his own body. None of this seems particularly fair to him in that moment.

And then they are in the cab together. It's nothing like Jack wished for, but it isn't bad, either. Gabe is quiet, slumped in Jack's arms. His head is on Jack's shoulder. Jack clings to him. He strokes Gabe's brow, his fingers playing at that stray curl. It's so fucking soft. He wants a pillow filled with the stuff. Neither of them are wearing seat-belts, so with each turn of the car, their bodies jostle together. 

It is like someone keeps hitting the fast-forward button on Jack's life. The next moment he is aware of, he is home. No. This isn't his dormitory. It's Gabe's. Jack is sprawled on the linoleum in the tiny kitchen, wedged between the sink and the island. Gabe is moving around him with a sober man's purposefulness. "Did we dance?" Jack asks. He can't remember ever asking him or not.

"What?" Gabe asks, crouching beside him. He puts something soft in Jack's hands. Jack stares at it for a long time before understanding that he is holding a peanut butter sandwich. He tries to shove the thing back to Gabe, because his stomach is rolling around in his gut in a way that seems too volatile to take in more of anything. "No, Jackie, you gotta eat it. You'll regret it in the morning if you don't."

Gabe gets back up leaving Jack with the sandwich. He is touched by the existence of the thing - made for him by Gabriel Reyes. He puts it in his mouth and forces himself to chew. Gabe returns to his side soon with a sandwich of his own, and he has filled a bowl with water. They take turns drinking out of it, sloshing it down the fronts of their shirts. 

"I wanted to ask you," Jack says.

"Ask me what?"

"To dance. I wanted to dance with you." He looks over at Gabe, although suddenly his head seems too heavy to support, and even turning it just this small degree seems to drain him of his energy. 

"You don't know how to dance," Gabe laughs at him.

"You could have taught me," Jack mutters, pouting to himself. 

"No," Gabe says, "You're too... I don't know... Where did you say you're from? Bloomfield?"

"Bloomington. Indiana," Jack responds. 

"You're too Bloomington."

They laugh and laugh together, until Jack has tears rolling down his cheeks. He lets his head rest on Gabe's shoulder. A moment later, Gabe's head droops against the top of his own, and he begins to snore. 

* * *

Jack wakes with a dry mouth and a headache that feels like his skull might implode or explode from the pressure. It's not the worst hangover he's had, he admits to himself. His stomach feels okay, so he thinks some water and an aspirin might revive him. He opens his eyes. It is dark, but not nighttime dark. Just dark from a cloudy day outside, maybe it's raining, and there are no lights on in here. He is sprawled on Gabe's kitchen floor. Above him looms the man himself. He is staring down at Jack with an expression of unbridled awe. His fingers explore Jack's face, the touches meticulous but feather-soft. When he notices that Jack has opened his eyes, Gabe jerks away.

_You don't have to pull away_ , Jack thinks to himself. He sits up. His heart is fluttering sickly in his chest; it feels incapable of completing a full-strength beat. Maybe his brain isn't getting enough oxygen because of that, and that's why he feels so lightheaded as he slides his hand back into Gabe's coarse dark hair and pulls him in closer. He kisses Gabe fiercely, relieved it is finally happening. It doesn't matter to him that their mouths taste like a urinal full of tequila-piss. His whole body tingles, feeling alive for the first time, when their tongues touch.

Gabriel is frozen for only an instant, petrified by shock. But then he throws Jack off of him and begins spitting onto the linoleum, pawing at his lips and tongue like a child. "What the _fuck!_ Why are you _kissing_ me!"

Jack is so mortified that he can barely stammer out an apology, "I-I'm sorry! I saw you l-looking at me! I-I thought.... It-it was a misunderstanding!" He sees flashes of his own future. Kicked out of the SEP, out of the whole United States army. Outed to his conservative Bible-thumping parents. Every bit of dignity stripped from him. Where will he go, when his parents throw him out? What will he do to survive? "Please... Gabe, please. I'm still drunk, that's all. It meant nothing. Please."

Gabe laughs at him, and the sound is joyless and horrible. "Oh, relax, Jack," he snarls, "You think I'm going to run and tell on you? You think I give a fuck if you're gay?"

"I'm not!"

"Shut up, Jack," Gabe says, "Can you explain to me why I woke up spooning you on my kitchen floor? Please, _Dios mío_ , don't tell me we're sleeping together now."

"W-what?" Jack feels his cheeks burn hot. He doesn't even know how to respond. He is so ashamed, so afraid of what is going to happen to him now. He thinks he might actually cry. 

"Have I fucked you, Jack? It's a simple question."

"God, no!" Jack cries, "W-we just had too much to drink last night! Gabe, how can you even ask that? Of course we aren't doing anything like that..."

Gabe sighs. He leans back against the cabinet at his back and rubs his hands over his face. "Good. How long has it been?"

"Since when?" Jack asks. Gabe is acting very strangely, and he thinks maybe he is still drunk, or the alcohol is reacting with some chemical they've been given.

"Since the night I freaked out on you, I guess. That's only happened once, right?"

"Y-yes. I was the night before last," Jack answers.

" _What!_ Onlytwo nights ago? What the fuck!"Gabe pulls himself to his feet, swaying a little, "Why is this happening? _WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?"_ He slams a fist down on the countertop, and Jack hears the tinkle of trembling glasses in the shelves above them. He scoots away from Gabe, scared that he is becoming violent again. Is he having another attack, Jack wonders? But he doesn't _think_ he is... he does seem to have a better grip on himself. Maybe the kiss has freaked him out so badly that he's acting this way. Maybe he's about to beat the shit out of Jack, the way that the bullies in elementary school did when they found him holding hands with a boy named Jeremy at recess in fifth grade. He has been barricaded deep, deep in the closet ever since then, and he regrets so much that he let himself feel anything for Gabriel Reyes, who has all the power in the world to absolutely ruin his career and his life. 

"Gabe, that kiss... I promise you, it meant nothing. I was just joking around. I had too many margaritas."

"I don't _care_ Jack. Just get away from me," Gabe says, and the words are sharp and poisonous. Jack actually winces. 

"I just want to make sure you understand," he pleads with him, "I promise. I'm not... I'm not gay." The lie hurts so much to say, when he had been dreaming of loving this man. He's told the lie a million times, but right now it has tears burning in his eyes. 

Gabe exhales, loud and long. When he looks back at Jack, the anger is gone, replaced by pity, which is almost worse. "Jesus, you really just are a kid, aren't you?"

Jack doesn't know what to say. He just stares up at Gabe, bracing for a blow or words that will destroy him.

"Jack, I will _never_ think less of you for your sexuality. I will _never_ out you to anyone. But please. Leave me alone."

The final word is like a punch to the gut. It hurts, and he is ashamed that it hurts. Feeling like a wounded animal, he pulls himself up and slinks back to the safety of his dorm.

* * *

Life goes back to normal for the days following that morning. The weekend is the hard part - two big, empty days where he sat doing nothing but thinking about Gabe just one wall away. He tries everything to distract himself from watching TV to browsing news articles on his phone's internet browser to giving himself the slowest and most thorough shave of his life. Nothing works. He is worried that Gabe might have hurt himself, or that Gabe will do something to get him kicked out of the program. But underneath it all, Jack's biggest fear is that Gabe will never be close to Jack again. 

By the return of the week days, Jack is glad for the familiar routine of training drills and medical experiments. And the sickness, of course. It isn't the same every time, and it doesn't _always_ follow the injections and pills, but it does happen often enough that Jack is no longer surprised by it. This time it starts with a nausea that prevents him from taking any of his meals that day, but by the evening he is so sick that he can't even drink water without vomiting it up. Then his muscles begin to contract and spasm uncontrollably, like small, conscious seizures. He feels so weak that he can barely get himself to the med bay, and when he does, he finds that they're all there. Every single one of them. Except Gabe, that is. They give him medicine that keeps him asleep, or mostly asleep, and only then does he find relief from his suffering. Why did he sign up for this? Were super human abilities worth all of this? But he knows that the lives he will save will change his mind, if he can get through the awful side effects long enough to actually get any action on the front. 

They keep him on an IV drip of something through the night, and in the morning a shot in his ass. Then he is handed two unlabeled bottles of prescription pills, told to take one every 12 hours for the next 5 days and the other to take as needed for nausea, and kicked out of the med bay with all the others. Everyone is on bed rest until next Monday. _Perfect_ , Jack thinks. There goes his distractions to keep from thinking about what happened between him and Gabe. 

Except he really can't think about Gabe after all. His stomach is still churning, and his body is flipping between cold and hot. All he wants to do is crawl into bed and sleep. Time passes strangely. Sometimes he falls asleep for what he is sure is hours, only to open his eyes and realize that only fifteen minutes have passed. Other times, he blinks and loses huge chunks of the day. 

At one point, there is a hard knock on his dormitory door. He can't answer it. He can't even find his voice to call out to the visitor. 

The next morning, another knock. He's feeling a little better that day, and actually happened to be out of bed, trying to make some toast to eat to soothe his stomach when the knock came. He shuffles to the door and opens it. At the sight of Gabe standing in the hallway, he nearly pukes. It is the last thing he imagined finding on the other side of the door, and the absolute last thing he wanted to find. He recoils, expecting Gabe to be mad at him, to attack him. But Gabe looks haggard. His eyes are rimmed with heavy, dark bags and he is pale. He's wearing the same clothes that he wore to the Mexican restaurant a handful of nights ago. Jack doesn't even know what to say to him, so he stammers out the awkward and stupid, "I'm sorry that I kissed you."

"You kissed me?" Gabe asks. The two men stare at each other for a long time, not speaking, not even blinking. Then Gabe laughs, although it is a tired and small sound. "You must be shit at kissing, Morrison, for me to not remember a damn thing about it."

How can Gabe not remember? Jack doesn't even know what to say. He clings to the door frame for support. 

"Can I come in?"

Jack steps back and Gabe pushes past him into his dorm. This is the first time Gabe has been in here, he realizes. The man looks very out of place. Jack, suddenly weary, wobbles to the sofa and collapses into it. 

"So you really kissed me?" Gabe asks, sitting down beside him. 

Jack doesn't answer. He stares back at him, his face slack. 

"It happened again, Jack," Gabe says after he realizes Jack isn't going to respond. "The... the... I don't know. Attack. The period of memory loss. Like, remember, when you helped me the other day? It was like that."

"Oh." It's the first syllable that Jack has uttered since Gabe arrived. It sounds almost as stupid as he feels. So Gabe didn't remember the kiss at all. If he hadn't brought the damn thing up, Gabe never would have known about it. And that explains why Gabe kicked him out of his place, why Gabe was suddenly hostile again. It all makes sense. 

"It was worse this time, though," Gabe tells him, "Jack, I woke up yesterday in fucking _Los Angeles._ Somehow I had bought a plane ticket and sneaked off base and flown all the way back home. I don't remember a single thing. When I got back here, I told them everything. About how you found me the other night, too. They seem to believe me, I guess, but they were _pissed_. I think they would have kicked me out for sure if they didn't see me as some asset that they've pumped full of their expensive ass drugs. Speaking of which, you look like hell, you know?"

Jack nods. He knows. 

"Come on, Blondie," Gabe says, grabbing him by the arms and guiding him back to bed.

Once Jack is settled, Gabe disappears, and Jack thinks he has been left alone to process what Gabe has said to him, but Gabe returns moments later with a plate of crackers and a bottle of Gatorade. Jack doesn't even drink Gatorade. Gabe must have got it from his own dorm. He is glad to get something in his stomach, so he nibbles the crackers obediently. Gabe slides into bed beside him, resting his head on one of Jack's pillows, and he closes his eyes, but does not fall asleep. The sight of him there is surreal to Jack, who has spent days and days convinced that Gabe is disgusted by him, that Gabe was going to ruin his life, that they would never see each other again. Now here he is in his bed.

"I'm kinda scared, Jackie, I ain't gonna lie," he mutters, "What if it gets worse? What if I forget everything forever?"

Jack sets the plate down on his nightstand and scoots in close against him, the little spoon to Gabe's big spoon. Gabe doesn't touch him, but he also doesn't pull away. "That's not going to happen, Gabe. The doctors will figure it out."

Gabe is silent behind him, and Jack thinks it's probably because he doesn't believe him. Just as Jack is beginning to drift off, he feels Gabe's face press in between his shoulders. "You're gonna have to do a better job of kissing me next time, Jack." 

Jack beams into his pillow. 


	3. The Future, The Past

Jack doesn't immediately get an opportunity to prove his kissing skills (or lack thereof,) but he and Gabe fall into friendship so effortlessly that it leaves Jack stunned. Gabe doesn't even try to hide their closeness around their fellow soldiers. He teases him ruthlessly, discusses their plans for the weekends in public, sits next to him in the dining hall. It amazes Jack that Gabe knows his secret and still treats him normally. He half expects Gabe to blackmail him one day, but as the weeks stretch out into months, that feels less and less likely. They're warm with each other, and openly so, to the point that Jack realizes if he is outed, then Gabe goes down with him. But Gabe's two "Attacks," as he calls them, hang like a veil between them; as close as they get, they are never quite touching. Jack feels awkward about the fact that they haven't really addressed what happened, but Gabe does not. Nothing makes Gabe feel awkward. He is impossibly cool always. 

Jack Morrison, hopeless romantic, wishes that their first kiss will be dramatic and significant. Perhaps they will be called to defend some European city from an Omnic attack, and after their victory, Gabe will run to Jack, sweep him up in his arms, and kiss him in front of everyone. Or maybe they'll be getting drinks at their favorite Mexican restaurant, and the mariachi band will approach their table, playing some Spanish love song that Gabe asked them to serenade Jack with, and Gabe will lean across the table and press his lips to Jack's shocked smile. These are all just fantasies, though. Gabe is far from romantic. In fact, Jack often wonders if he is imagining a relationship, because Gabe treats him almost no differently than he treats his other friends. 

Jack never gets his storybook first kiss. Instead, the moment is unremarkable.

They are on the couch in Gabe's dorm, their feet up on his coffee table (a piece of furniture that Jack still has funny feelings about.) Gabe has discovered some way to watch a live soccer game online, so he has his laptop casting its screen to his television. A team of men in yellow and green are playing a team of men in green, white, and red. Gabe is drinking a beer. Jack has learned, since getting to know Gabe, that half of the SEP have favorite soccer players and favorite teams from countries that they have never been to. Jack prefers American football or baseball, but he is in the minority here. Gabe cannot stand either sport. In fact, the only other sport he tolerates besides soccer is hockey, and he only really gets into it when fights break out on the ice. 

The game is going excruciatingly slow today; not one single goal has been scored. Gabe slumps against Jack and begins to snore in his quiet, bear-like way. Jack lifts a hand, slips his fingers into Gabe's hair. He watches the match that way, his hands idly playing in Gabe's dark locks. He doesn't allow himself touches like this when Gabe is awake, because Gabe will shrug him off and call it "sappy shit." He knows he is in love with Gabe, although he won't admit it. He feels the love like blossoming fauna around his heart. The seed was planted during that first breakfast, but they have cultivated it with every moment spent together, and its roots now burrow deep. Soon, it will grow into something more. Jack can't wait to discover what that might be. 

The match does eventually pick up speed. When Gabe wakes up, the score is 3 - 1, although Jack doesn't know which team is winning, or which Gabe wants to win. Gabe tilts his head up to glance at Jack, then to the television, then back at Jack again. He scowls most of the time, but something about the scowl he wears now is different. There is a rawness to it, a softness that conveys grief and anger in a naked way. His brows furrow. His hands clench into fists. "It happened again, didn't it?" he asks, and Jack realizes what the emotion is. He couldn't put a finger on it before, because it is so completely unlike Gabriel Reyes. It is helplessness. Gabe looks _helpless_ and he looks _scared._ There is nothing of the brave, smug, grouchy asshole that Jack knows in that face. 

He takes Gabe's cheeks in his hands. "No, Gabe. You're okay. You just dozed off," he says. And, God, he loves him so fiercely in that moment. He wants to protect him from this horrible thing that keeps happening to him, but he has no way to do so. He feels as helpless as Gabe looks. All he can do is lean in, until his mouth meets Gabe's. That scowl falls apart against the brush of lips. Gabe opens for him, and their tongues find each other, and Jack feels a burst of heat that starts in his heart and spreads in chain reactions through his whole nervous system. 

" _Goal!"_ screams the television, and Jack grins against the assault of Gabe's tongue. Yes. Goal. 

Gabe is on him, lowering him back onto the couch. Both men are too big in their enhanced bodies to find a position on the cushions that feels comfortable. Even as their mouths refuse to be pried apart, their knees and elbows shift and nudge and jab and slip. He finds it hard to focus on moving his limbs, because of the electric pleasure he feels just from Gabe's kiss. Gabe likes to use his teeth, he notices - it makes him shudder beneath the other man.

Jack is wearing shorts, the same cargo shorts that Gabe always mocks him for, but then he is _not_ wearing shorts - where have they gone? - and there is so much dark mocha latte flesh against every inch of him. He gasps and shudders when Gabe's fingers grip his bare thighs. Gabe abandons his panting mouth, and Jack pines for it, until he feels the teeth and wet tongue exploring him. His clavicle, his nipples, his navel, his knees - Gabe sucks the moans right out of his throat, until Jack feels like a boneless puddle of tissue oozing into the couch. When Gabe's mouth wraps around his entrance, Jack whimpers, and his erection throbs painfully in rhythm with each lick there. 

Then Gabe is not just on him, but _in_ him. He is silent, wearing an intense, fierce expression as his body pushes into Jack's, but Jack is loud, the volume of his sobs and sighs drowning out the rowdy audience that fills the room like white noise from the television. He squeezes his eyes shut and clings to Gabe's back, so tight and so hard that a normal man would have been crushed in his hold. Somehow, he imagined this differently, more sensual, perhaps, and with more kissing. But Gabe is aggressive, one hand gripping Jack's cock, the other at Jack's throat, and the pressure is enough that Jack can barely moan, can barely breathe. He _likes_ it, though, he realizes. Gabe's body drills into him, machine-like, so hard the couch is squealing. Jack goes weak and limp, his mind drunk from bliss. He listens to the groaning couch, listens to the hiss of skin on skin, and then finds the distant roar of the cheering soccer fans, and he imagines that they have a stadium around them, watching them fuck like this, and the idea of that throws him over the edge. With a muffled cry, he spills into Gabe's fingers and falls trembling back onto the pillows. Gabe uses him until he's done and pulls out immediately, leaving Jack empty and wanting to be filled again. He feels the wetness seep between his legs and finally forms his first coherent thought, which is, simply - _holy shit._

They tumble apart from each other and Jack is stunned. Gabriel Reyes, his new best friend, whom he assumed was straight, just fucked him. What does this mean? Surely everything will change. Will it be awkward now between them? Even as the panic sets in, Jack craves more contact, more attention, but Gabe is sitting up and has thrown his legs back up on the coffee table. He looks exactly as he had maybe a quarter of an hour before, except his brow is dripping perspiration and his pants are off. His complete nonchalance about his nudity makes Jack suddenly shy about his own. He folds in on himself, trying to be modest and cover his naked body with his limbs. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Gabe growls, throwing a palm over his sweaty face and shaking his head, "Those assholes got two more goals?" 

_Really_? He's still thinking about soccer? It almost makes Jack mad. I love you, he wants to say. We had sex, and I love you, and you don't even care. 

"I can't watch this anymore," Gabe sighs, and he falls back on top of Jack, resting his cheek against Jack's chest. He reaches for his phone on the coffee table and sends a two-word response of "fuck you" to someone who has texted him "You owe me 20 bucks lmao." Jack is aware of how each of his breaths jostles Gabe's head. He tries to breathe as shallowly as possible. One of his hands settles on Gabe's head and he combs his fingers through the other man's damp hair, just like before, except Gabe is awake this time and amazingly does not jerk away. His touches release the fragrance of Gabe's shampoo - something sharp and crisp and lovely. Maybe eucalyptus? Or tea tree oil? "You're kind of a freak, you know that, Jackie?" 

"What?" Jack asks, "No, I'm not!"

"Yeah, you're a little bit of a masochist, aren't you?"

Jack knows, in theory, what S&M is, but he can't remember which one is which. He is flushes bright red, and, no matter how he denies it, Gabe keeps teasing him. So this is how it will be? No discussion about their feelings? No consideration of the repercussions this will have on their relationship? Just jokes, as if Jack's feelings don't matter at all? 

But Gabe drops his phone and rolls onto his stomach, looking up at Jack with a smirk on his face that gives Jack the impression of a purring cat. Gabe always smirks, never smiles, Jack notices. Except now, there's something less sarcastic about it, more gentle and honest. 

_Tell him that you love him_ , Jack thinks. But he knows that this is the worst possible time for any confession like that, so he remains silent. _I'll tell him next time._

But the next time happens to be two hours later, when Gabe suggests that they go grab some food and pulls Jack into the shower with him instead of letting him go get cleaned up next door. That timing felt wrong, too. 

And before Jack can make sense of this new development in their relationship, they're having sex all the time. Sometimes Gabe sets his alarm early to get a quickie in before they're on duty. Other times they fuck on their lunch break in empty bathrooms. If they're not too worn out, they do it on weeknights, and every weekend is inevitably wasted naked on Gabe's couch. Gabe is insatiable, and Jack has never felt so wanted or important to someone in his entire life. This isn't the way things are supposed to go, he tells himself. He and his last boyfriend dated for eight months before having sex, and even then, they did so with a sense of guilt hanging over them, as though their hometown's homophobia had convinced them both that they actually were doing something inherently wrong. It isn't like that with Gabe at all, and Jack _loves_ feeling like he's doing something normal. Well, maybe not entirely normal. They've found that the best places for Gabe to bite are Jack's thighs, because no one will ever see the bruises he leaves there, and Jack has developed a pattern of tapping on Gabe's ribs to let him know that he is choking him too hard and needs to ease up. 

After a few weeks, the separation of their dorms becomes arbitrary, and they sleep together in whomever's bed is closest. Sleeping with Gabe is the best part, and it makes Jack love him even more hopelessly. Jack never expected in his wildest dreams that Gabe would be a cuddler, because after sex he pulls away pretty much immediately, but at night, in the dark, Gabe prefers to fall asleep with his head over Jack's heart. Once he is in deep slumber, he rolls away, and Jack likes to spoon up against him with his forehead between the other man's muscular shoulder blades. 

And that is how they are sleeping together one night, when Gabe jolts awake, knocking Jack off of him and back into his own pillows. Jack opens his eyes and tries to make sense of the sudden commotion in the darkness. A Gabe-shaped shadow is storming around the room, digging through piles of discarded clothes. He grabs a pair of briefs and tugs them on without realizing they are Jack's. Jack sits up in their bed, Gabe's bed, and asks, "What's wrong, babe?"

Gabe turns, and Jack _swears_ that for a second it looks like his eyes flashed catlike in the darkness. "Why are you here?" he snarls, "Jesus Christ, are we _sleeping_ together now?"

And Jack knows It has happened again. Except this time he is determined to make sense of this. "Yes. We've been having sex for almost two months," he says, "And I've been sleeping with you since... last Saturday? No. Last Friday."

"What the hell?" Gabe growls to himself, "We've never slept together. This doesn't make any sense. This is all wrong."

Jack ignores these words, because they are confusing and painful to him. There is nothing wrong about this, he wants to tell Gabe. Everything about us is right. But instead, he swings his legs out of bed and rises to his feet. He crosses the room, coming to stand right in front of Gabe, and he asks him, "Are you still Gabriel Reyes?"

"What a dumb fucking question, Jack. Of course I'm still myself."

"So can you explain what's happening? What are you feeling? Is this some kind of... alternate personality?" Jack took a beginner's psychology course at his university; it was a requirement to graduate. But all he remembers from it are a meaningless jumble of names and vocabulary words. His teacher never covered whether people with other personalities were aware of these other personalities. Did people even actually have other personalities? Or was that something only found in movies? 

Gabe glares at him. From this close, Jack can just make out the fury in his face through the darkness. "Kid," he says, "That's none of your business. This is something that doesn't involve you."

"It does involve me!" Jack snaps back at him, "Because I love you!"

Gabe freezes and so does Jack; he realizes what he has just said. This isn't how he wanted his confession to happen. "You love me?" Gabe asks, "Do I love you?" 

Jack considers this. He has been too afraid to allow himself to really address this before, but he thinks of how Gabe falls asleep, listening to his heartbeat, and he is glad that Gabe cannot see the blush that rises to his cheeks. "We haven't said it yet," he admits, "But I think so. I really think you do."

Gabe pushes past Jack and sits down at the foot of the bed, running his hands through his hair in a way Jack recognizes he always does when he's stressed. It's definitely still Gabe in there, he realizes. "This doesn't make any sense," Gabe says, "I never loved you. We never slept together. Why is everything changing?" 

"Gabe, I want to make sense of this, too," Jack says, "Don't run away this time. Please. Let's talk this through." He sits down beside Gabe on the edge of the bed, although he's careful not to actually touch him. 

"You're not going to believe me."

"Try me," Jack challenges him. 

Gabe snorts. Then the room goes silent. Jack wants to put his hand on Gabe's thigh, or even his shoulder, and offer him some comfort of any kind, but he keeps his hands to himself and his lips shut tight. He senses that Gabe is going to break down and say something soon if he is just patient. And eventually, he does. "This is my past."

"What?" Jack asks.

"My past. This is my body, when I was younger. You're in your young body, too. This is the dorm I remember from when I was in the SEP. I'm reliving my own past. Everything is exactly as I remember it. No, I don't remember most of this shit at all, but I know it's right. Except you... you and me... This is different. This never actually happened. We never..." He waves his hand around vaguely between himself and Jack, unable to complete the sentence.

Jack tries to process this information, but it's so far from what he expected to hear, so far from anything he has ever heard in his entire life, that he can't wrap his head around it. Part of him wants to laugh. He really wants to ask Gabe if he's messing with him. But he knows that the second he scoffs, Gabe will shut down again. Maybe even get mad and violent. This other Gabe is scary, unpredictable, and dangerous. "Okay," he says, taking a deep breath, "So you can see the future?" It's the closest he can guess.

"No," Gabe says, "I _am_ the future. That's where I am from. But something's gone wrong. I keep coming back here." He runs his hands over his body, and it looks very much like someone touching something they are unfamiliar with, like a man may put his hand on a new car, or like someone may feel a piece of clothing before they try it on at the store. 

"So you are... time traveling?" 

Gabe glares at him. "You think I'm lying, don't you? You think I'm crazy."

"No, Gabe," Jack says, and he scoots in closer to him, putting a hand on his upper arm, "It is hard to believe, I admit. But I _do_ believe, because I know you wouldn't lie to me about something this serious." 

Gabe still looks angry, but he doesn't shove Jack's hand off of him or pull away. Instead, he turns to stare down at his hands in his lap. He flips them over and over, palm-up, palm-down, palm-up again, studying the shapes of his fingernails and the wrinkles at his knuckles. Jack takes his hands in his own, and the two men lock eyes in the darkness. 

"How many years ahead of today are you?" he asks. 

"Listen, kid," Gabe says, pulling his hands away, "I can tell I've already fucked up this timeline. Because in my past, you and I were never together like this. I'm not gay. Or anything like that. I had a family once. I don't want to fuck up this timeline anymore by telling you about the future."

The word _gay_ from Gabe's mouth feels like a bullet passing through Jack. He winces, recoils. "So this is fucked up to you?" he asks, feeling tears burn in his eyes, threatening to fall. He tries so hard not to take it personally. This isn't how his own Gabe feels. But what if it is? What if this whole thing is just his subconscious coming through? That sounds like a theory his psych professor would have agreed with. The silence settles heavy upon them. It feels suffocating. 

"Yes, Jack. This is very fucked up to me. We were friends. Best friends, even. But sex? Love? This never happened in the real past," Gabe says. 

"This is real to me," Jack argues, hearing his voice rise, "My reality is that you and I are together like this. It's not fair for you to come here from some... some other time and tell me that my feelings for you aren't real. And what's so wrong with this? What's wrong with two people being happy together?"

"Because this isn't two people. This is me and you. We aren't together. We have never had sex, Jack. Never. We have never dated. We never even kissed. Well... there was that one time in Lisbon, but we were drunk, and afterward even _you_ said that we should never tell a soul. I've known you were gay for many decades, Jack, and that never kept me from being friends with you, but we were _never_ together. I would _never_ have been with you. I don't understand why things have changed in my past. This doesn't make any sense to me."

"Many decades?" Jack repeats. In this tirade of words that hurt like individual beatings, it is the only thing he can latch onto that doesn't feel like an attack. "So we still know each other?"

Gabe's response comes with a snort of such clear disdain that the tears Jack has been fighting begin to fall. "Oh, yes. We still know each other."

Jack paws the moisture from his cheeks. "As things change here, d-do they change your future?" he asks. He tries so hard to conceal the quiver in his voice, but he's sure Gabe hears it.

"No. I considered that already. It doesn't look like any changes have been made."

"So maybe this isn't the same past. And you aren't my future. Maybe this is a separate chain of events," Jack suggests. 

"That doesn't make any sense, Jack. This isn't some damn movie," Gabe scoffs at him.

"How is time travel more sensible than alternate reality?" Jack asks, "Maybe the fact that you came here at all is changing things? And now the two timelines have split. One where we are together, and one where we weren't. Like that theory, the Butterfly Effect?"

"That's not what the theory is at all. The Butterfly Effect is a theory of quantum chaos. It has nothing to do with - " 

"Okay, whatever. But you know what I mean." They go silent again, and Jack swallows back the last of his tears. When it becomes obvious that Gabe isn't going to say anything else, Jack adds, "There has to be some way that I can help."

Gabe sighs. "No, Jack. There isn't. I just have to ride this out and get back to my own body. I have people helping me try to figure this out."

"Okay," Jack says, "But maybe we should test if this is really your past? Like... maybe there's a way we can test to see how similarly or differently things will happen?"

"I'll prove it to you," Gabe growls, "Just bring me a calendar."

This again? Jack stands and heads to the kitchen, where he remembers the wall calendar from before. As he takes the pins down, Gabe moves in behind him, as silent as a housecat. He might have been startled if he hadn't seen the man's shadow sweep up from behind him, cast onto the fridge by the green light of the numbers on the microwave. Jack sets the calendar down on the counter, and they lean over it together. Gabe's face is expressionless as he looks at the grid of squares and numbers. 

"Here," Gabe says, tapping a finger on a box just three weeks away, "If things are happening the same, then on this day, I remember Omnics attacked the airport in Atlanta."

"Atlanta?" Jack repeats, "Gabe, there haven't been any attacks made by Omnics on US soil."

"There haven't been any _yet_ ," Gabe says, "You don't have to believe me. I don't give a damn what happens to your world, because in mine it already happened. I can't bring back the hundreds of people who died. We were sent there, the SEP, but the Omnics had been there for hours by the time we arrived. It took us two days to take back the airport. A lot of good soldiers lost their lives, and a lot of innocent civilians did, too. It was a new kind of Omnic. Heavily armored, but more mobile than a Bastion. I remember it clearly. You can listen to me and do something about it, or you can wait to watch me end up right."

Jack nods. He doesn't know what to do with this knowledge. Who can he tell? But he feels in his gut that he should trust this Gabe. "I'll make sure we are there to save those people."

Gabe isn't listening to him, though. His eyes have grown distant, vacant, as he studies the month and the year. Jack puts a hand on his shoulder, but Gabe shrugs it off with his teeth bared like a dog's. "Don't. Touch. Me."

Jack's eyes fall to the linoleum floor beneath his bare feet. He tries to tell himself that this isn't his Gabe, this is a different person entirely, but it is hard to convince himself of that when the mouth and the voice belong to the same body that had just been wrapped around him in bed. His heart feels small and shriveled and weak in his ribs, each beat more like a dying twitch. Where will their lives go so wrong, that this is how Gabe ends up feeling about him? What horrors does life have in store? It is agony to consider a future where he and Gabe were never lovers and ended up the better for it. Or were they really better off in that future? 

"Can I ask you something?" he asks.

"No. I've told you more than enough."

"Please," Jack begs him, "I just want to know why you hate me. What happened?"

Gabe tears his eyes away from the calendar and looks at him, sees the tears on his cheeks, and his expression softens just a little. It is the closest he has looked to himself all night. "It doesn't matter, Jack. Things are different here. You and this other me will probably end up living happily ever after or some garbage like that. No need to worry your pretty little head."

"But I want to know, Gabe," Jack says, "Did I hurt you? Have you always hated me? Or did I do something to make you hate me?"

Gabe sighs. "We used to be friends, Jack. Best friends. For a long damn time. And then everything fell apart."

"So if we aren't friends, Gabe, then what are we now?"

Gabe returns the calendar to the wall, pushing the pins in with more force than necessary. He does not answer.

"Gabe, I love you. All versions of you. Even you, this you. I can't just turn this feeling off. It's not - "

"You do not love me," Gabe interrupts him, "You don't know me. You don't know the things I have done, or, rather, the things that I will eventually do."

"So do I hate you?" Jack asks, "You clearly hate me, but would you say that I hate you, too?"

And, to Jack's surprise, Gabe thinks about it. Really thinks hard. They are silent, the hum of the refrigerator the loudest sound in the dark kitchen. It's so quiet that Jack can hear Gabe swallow before he speaks, "I have done things that hurt you. Things that you do not, cannot understand. But I don't think that you hate anyone, Jack. Not even me. You try too damn hard to cling to the good parts of people, even the people like me who don't deserve it. And I don't hate you, either. Things have gone very wrong. Things cannot be repaired."

Jack wants more details. He wants to know what Gabe has done, what his Gabe might come to do. But Gabe closes his mouth, and it has all the finality of a slammed door. Jack can tell that the conversation is over. It scares him. Gabe isn't good at expressing himself. His default reaction to things is anger, and anything beyond that he conceals with sarcasm. But this Gabe is so much worse. There is a darkness to him, something Jack is tempted to label as evil. How can he prevent Gabe from turning into this? Their relationship has been so invigorating. They are equals. They demand nothing from one another. Their friendship or love or whatever it is comes so effortlessly, so naturally to Jack that it feels as necessary to his survival as breathing. Not that they don't argue. Gabe fights with everyone, and Jack is just as stubborn as he is. But when they argue, nothing feels like it is at stake. Inevitably, Jack will calm down first, and when he goes, batting eyelashes, to Gabe, Gabe's anger melts into affection again, or even lust. And the make-up sex is great, worth every furious word. The idea of breaking up is absurd because their lives are woven together now so seamlessly. He needs a future with Gabe. _Needs_ it.

"You said your life isn't changing because of the changes in mine," Jack says, "So is there nothing that I can do to avoid the future you're talking about?"

"I don't know."

Gabe begins to pull out every drawer, rummaging through silverware and potholders, rolls of aluminum foil and different sizes of spatulas, until he finds the junk drawer, from which he pulls out a pen and a pad of sticky notes. He leaves the kitchen and goes to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table. Jack follows him, hovering over his shoulder as he beings to scribble down numbers. Dates, Jack realizes. Then he is doing complicated equations, peeling sheets from the pad as he fills them and sticking them to the surface of the table. 

Jack sits down on the couch and watches, frankly amazed. He has never asked Gabe about his education before, doesn't even know what the man majored in. But Gabe is clearly brilliant, processing all of this information without even a calculator. He has a feeling, some small and nagging voice at the back of his mind, that the Gabe he knows _can't_ do these equations. Whoever is in this body before him knows things his Gabriel Reyes does not know.

The frantic mathematics must have lulled him to sleep, because the next thing he knows, he is waking up a few hours later. He is still on Gabe's couch. Gabe's alarm is going off in the other room. The table is covered in layers of sticky notes, but they've all been violently scribbled over, some so hard that the pen's tip scratched straight through the paper itself, leaving dark, angry marks on the tabletop. Jack pulls himself to his feet so that he can go turn off the alarm, but as he stands, a note falls off of his chest. It's in a handwriting just like Gabe's, but not exactly right. Gabe has written down the date of the Atlanta airport attack, and beneath it has sketched out a tiny map of lines and squares, each concourse labeled. Between Concourse B and Concourse C is a bold X. Off to the side, Gabe has written the word "vents" and circled it many times. Jack takes the note with him to go retrieve his clothes from the floor of Gabe's room. He turns off the alarm and listens to the silence that follows. Gabe is nowhere in the dorm. Jack is alone. 


	4. Vents

Most times after sex, Gabe will untangle himself from Jack's limbs and continue on with whatever he had been doing, as though nothing had interrupted whatever thought or activity had occupied him before - he goes back to flipping channels with a vacant expression on his face, or returns to his plate of food that has now long grown cold, or rolls over with his back to Jack and start snoring without another word, or throws his clothes back on and heads out the door with Jack scrambling to keep up. At first, it had driven Jack crazy, but he has come to appreciate it. It makes what they're doing and how they're living feel normal, which Jack knows it isn't. If anyone were to find out, they would be kicked out of the SEP immediately. They would lose everything, including each other. But in some particular moments - Jack can never predict what causes them - Gabe's climax leaves him relaxed, all his walls down as cleanly as though they never had been up to begin with. Jack can bring up any subject in the world and Gabe will respond honestly, kindly, and with more patience than usual. It is in one of these moments, with Gabe's head on the same pillow as his own, the humid smell of their sex still filling the room, that Jack finally asks what he has been wondering for a long time now: "What does it feel like, when it happens?" 

Ever since Jack passed on the details of the most recent incident, Gabe has been distant. His kisses are limp and halfhearted. He hesitates to make eye contact. Their conversations are one-sided, with Gabe never responding in more than a handful of words. Jack is afraid that they are coming apart. He has felt like they are coiled around each other, each man a different finger of the same vine, and it is _good_ to feel so close to someone, so together and whole, but the tangles are unraveling the more miserable Gabe grows. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Jack had asked. 

Gabe had snapped back at him, as vicious as the bark of a dog, "I can't believe how seriously you're taking this time travel bullshit."

"It's not bullshit, Gabe." 

"It abso- _fucking_ -lutely is!" Gabe snarled, "You said so yourself, the first time it happened. I was speaking nonsense. About cowboys and monkeys."

"Then how do you explain it?" Jack asked, feeling his own temperature rise, searing like flames, or like acid, beneath his skin.

Gabe went quiet, then, the anger drained from his face. Instead, he looked tired. "They think it's some kind of epilepsy. Brought on by the experiments."

Jack's fury also subsided. He wanted, in that moment, to hold Gabe in his arms and kiss him, but all he had to do was look at Gabe's chilly expression to know Gabe would never accept any comfort. Epilepsy was a serious diagnosis. He would be kicked out of the SEP for sure. A soldier can't be having seizures. In fact, the only reason he likely wasn't already gone was because the SEP knew the experiments were responsible. This was their fault. They had to deal with this. _You aren't seeing it, Gabe,_ he wanted to say then, _these aren't seizures._ But all he could do was watch while Gabe continued to withdraw. 

Tonight, sweaty and spent, Gabe seems like himself for the first time in many days. He is sprawled on his back, staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling as he considers Jack's question. His feet are caught in the sheets, but the rest of his body is naked and muscular and dark and beautiful. His skin is sticky, but Jack still clings to him, because in these moods, Gabe allows every touch he normally would shrug off as too romantic. He is quiet for long seconds, and Jack's fingers roam Gabe's torso, up and down the hills of his muscles, dipping into the crevice of his navel, through the patch of coarse hairs leading between his legs. Gabe snatches Jack by the wrist, pulling his hand away with a smirk. Jack twists his hand in Gabe's grip and weaves their fingers together. 

"It doesn't feel like anything," Gabe finally says, "It's like falling asleep, but there are no dreams. One second I'm awake, the next second, I'm waking up with no recollection of being asleep at all."

"I'm glad," Jack sighs, "I'd hate for it to hurt you."

Gabe raises their hands to his lips, kissing Jack's knuckles. 

* * *

For hours now, Jack has been trying to make sense of Gabe's clue - _vents -_ but none of the air vents he found went anywhere helpful, weren't even big enough for them to fit through. And now it is too late. There is a sound like thunder, so loud that Jack doesn't know whether to run or cover his ears, followed by cracks like shattering ice. Gabe looks up, gives a shout of warning. Jack dives, hears the rush of falling concrete and girders. The whole world seems to shudder from the impact, and he feels the painful scattering of shrapnel tear through his combat uniform. Immediately comes the explosion of rapid gunfire. Jack spins around, throws up his rifle. 

The ceiling collapse has created a mountain of debris that has split the airport in half, electrical wires spitting sparks that burst into angry fires. The Omnics drop down so heavy that their weight cracks the tiled floor. Jack has never seen anything like them, smaller and more agile than the Bastions. The bullets scratch across their bodies but do not penetrate. Magazine after magazine is expended, but to no avail. He scans the men around him, because Gabe is in charge of their troop now, and Gabe will know what to do, but among all the stricken, sooty faces, he cannot find his lover's at all, and the dread settles like a weight in his gut. He can't think. Only despair. 

Someone else yells that they need to regroup, but the voice is distant and Jack's ears are still ringing. Everyone is running into the concourse train tunnels, and Jack jogs after them, but he keeps turning to glance over his shoulder. Where is Gabe? The SEP has lost so many good men and women fighting the Omnics, but _this_ has never felt like a possibility. Gabe was the strongest. The fastest. The best. If Gabe couldn't survive, then no one can.

They pry open the doors to the tunnel, and another soldier grabs Jack's shoulder, pushes him down onto the tracks. Together they crouch in the darkness, shouting words that might as well be in another language to Jack's ears. Many of the soldiers are injured, some badly so. Thankfully, their enhancements have prepared them for this, so while they make sense of what is happening, try to plan how to deal with these new machines, they are healing themselves. Someone takes a headcount. Almost half of their number has been lost. 

"Morrison, come on, heal up," someone urges him. But he feels nauseous, and his hands are shaking, and all he can do is think about Gabe's absence, a vast emptiness in his heart. He might throw up. He's used to being a shot-caller, one of the heroes, but right now it takes all his concentration not to shed tears.

They decide to follow the tunnel. The rubble and the Omnics are blocking them from moving from Concourse B to Concourse C, but if they take the tunnel, they can bypass it all and emerge on the other side. Maybe they can even take the Omnics by surprise. Jack stumbles along at the back of the line, and he can hear gunfire through the walls; it gives him some comfort. Surely, if anyone survived that, and is in good enough condition to shoot a gun, it would be Gabe. Right? _RIght?_ He tries to convince himself of this, but the hope feels forced. All he can think about, trying not to trip over the tracks in the darkness, is how many thousands and thousands of hours he has spent in Gabe's presence, each of them a wasted opportunity where he should have said _I love_ _you_. But he never did. 

Everyone goes silent when they begin to see the dim light streaming in through the doors to Concourse C. As they fight to pull the doors apart, Jack realizes the other side is still, no more gunfire. He uses his arm to wipe sweat from his face, but his sleeve is caked in fresh blood and it just smears crimson across his brow. What will they see on the other side of these doors? He almost wants to turn back and get lost in the black tunnels, rather than face the future he suspects. They climb up off the tracks and pour out of the tunnel with their rifles raised, the thunder of heavy boots across the tiles is the only sound. They stick near the walls and rush down the long hallway, backtracking towards the scene of the attack. It all feels surreal to Jack. He's been in the army for a long damn time, thrown around from country to country with the SEP in order to defeat their Omnic enemies, but it has the strange, hazy confusion of his first time on a battlefield. Suddenly he is no longer sure what to do or how to react, and the gun feels too clumsy in his arms. There is shouting all around him, but he can't tell if it's good shouting or bad until everyone drops their rifles and he, reluctantly, does, too. The rest of their troop is there. No one seems to have been hurt worse than their enhancements could fix, but all of their relief is marred by shared shell-shocked expressions. 

"Where is Reyes?" Jack yells.

Everyone seems to point at once. Jack turns to look at the hill of concrete and iron. His body feels both feverish and icy, numb and tingling everywhere. 

There is Gabe. He sits perched on the body of a broken Omnic like it is his throne. Smoke rises from the rubble around him. His eyes are dark, his teeth clenched into a snarl. The rain falling in has drenched him, and his soaked hair is plastered like a slick dark cap against his head. 

"He somehow figured out that the vents on their sides were their weakest points," a voice behind Jack says. 

"He killed all of them," someone else adds, "by himself."

They lock stares. Jack crosses the distance between them and climbs up the heap, using rebar that sticks up like gaping teeth to pull himself up to Gabe's side. Gabe watches Jack, his expression does not soften, and Jack knows it is the other Gabriel Reyes, the older one, that inhabits this body right now. 

"I didn't want to experience this shit again," Gabe growls.

"It's good that you did," Jack says, "I couldn't tell what you meant by _vents_."

"What the fuck, Jack. Do I need to draw you a fucking diagram next time?"

Jack doesn't know how to respond. He is soaked, too, now. The rain feels frigid against his skin in this air conditioned airport, even with the thick, soupy air that seeps in from the broken ceiling. "You - Gabe - the other you... You don't believe yourself. That you're from the future. You think it's epilepsy."

Gabe laughs, and the sound is absolutely joyless. "Well now you can brag that you told me so."

"I don't think you'd take that well."

He laughs again. "Nope, not at all."

"So what now?" Jack asks him. 

"Now I pretend to be half my age for the foreseeable future," Gabe mutters, "Until things sort themselves out again."

"No, I mean..." Jack struggles to find the right words. He gestures around at the wrecked airport. "You saved a lot of lives here today, Gabe. We can use your knowledge to keep saving people. Think about how much good - "

Gabe interrupts him, pulls himself to his feet, "Sorry, Jackie, but I ain't a Boy Scout like you are. My goal wasn't to save anyone. My goal was just to show you I wasn't insane. And now that you believe me, I'm going to focus on fixing my own problems. I'm not going to try and save a bunch of lives, because in my time, those lives are already lost. It means nothing to me, whether there are survivors in _your_ timeline. I wouldn't care if the whole god damned world blew itself up with nukes."

Jack winces. He knows that Gabe, even his Gabe, is selfish, but it seems surreal that he could speak so callously about life. "You're talking about real people, Gabe. Men and women with families and jobs and hobbies and lovers. How can you not care?"

Gabe doesn't answer. He just snorts and pulls his leg back, kicking the Omnic hard. Its body goes tumbling down the heap, little pieces breaking off when it strikes the floor. The movement, or the sound, startles the other soldiers, who jump and raise their guns. Gabe stares down at them, willing them to shoot, but all of them laugh at their nervousness and toss their rifles back over their shoulders. Some of them crouch beside the Omnic and begin to prod its exposed parts. 

"You don't think you'd miss me, at least?" Jack asks, and he smiles a little, to show he is half-teasing. 

Gabe glares at him, but does not respond. 

* * *

All that anyone can talk about over the next few days is how scary Gabe was out there, more monster than man. They slap him on the back in the halls, and buy him beers, and retell the story among themselves again and again until it is almost nothing like the truth. Jack is glad that these stories are all that he has. He thinks he might be frightened of this other Gabe, if he had been there to witness it. 

Neither of them are avoiding each other, but they certainly aren't acting friendly, either. During the days, Gabe goes through the motions of attending training and completing his work orders. He talks to no one, even when directly spoken to, and everyone shrugs it off and assumes it is some kind of PTSD he has developed after the battle at the airport. They see each other often, and Jack catches Gabe staring hard and fierce every time, but he can't think of anything to say or any other questions that Gabe might actually answer. At night, Jack hears him talking to himself, pacing the room, slamming doors. Jack presses himself against their shared wall, sometimes sits on the carpet and leans against it for hours. This way, he can almost be close enough to Gabe to satisfy his heartache. Eating dinner alone, sleeping in an empty bed, it all makes him sick with longing. How could he have done this for so many years of his life, before meeting Gabe? He feels so helpless. All he wants is to work with Gabe to repair their life, but he knows that he offers nothing - no experience, no knowledge - that Gabe will welcome. 

On their fourth day back from Atlanta, Jack is getting groceries at the commissary, using his phone to check the shopping list he jotted down in the notes app, when a text comes through. The contact is saved simply as a line of heart emojis and, at the end, a single eggplant. 

Jack...

He abandons his shopping cart in the middle of the cereal aisle and goes bolting across the base, running until a normal man would have collapsed. He knows he looks crazy to anyone who might see him, but he doesn't care, he doesn't stop. 

Gabe is sitting in sweatpants in the hallway, his back to the narrow strip of wall between their doors. He looks spent and haggard. Coarse stubble darkens his jaw. His eyes are bloodshot, ringed in weary bags. Jack crouches before him, panting for breath, and Gabe reaches out to grip his arms. 

"Are you okay, babe?" Jack asks him. 

Gabe nods. "Can you grab me a shirt?" he asks, "I had to get the hell out of there."

Jack doesn't ask why; he's sure he'll see for himself. But first, he pulls Gabe up to his feet and unlocks his dorm, ushering Gabe inside. Gabe goes straight to his room. He collapses onto his stomach in Jack's bed, burrowing his face into Jack's pillow. "Thank you,"he mumbles into the memory foam. 

Jack clenches his hands into fists at his side. He takes one backwards step away, reluctant to leave Gabe alone. There are words as heavy as bricks weighing down his steps. He must say them, or it might kill him not to. But instead, he turns, and he hurries next door to give himself more time to think. Not when Gabe is so weak. No. A weak Gabe is more likely to accept Jack's confession of love, to return it. It would be too easy. It would mean less. Even as he thinks these things, he realizes how crazy they sound. Gabe needs to hear it more than ever, right? But before he can make a decision, he opens the door to Gabe's dorm, and all of that is momentarily forgotten. 

He circles the room, taking it all in, feeling deep, visceral horror. 

Gabe had continued his frantic note-taking and equations. The sheets of lined notebook paper are taped to the walls, dozens and dozens of them. Most have been scribbled out so heavily that they have become nothing but angry scratches of black ink, although on some he can still make out the faintest hints underneath of algebra or words in a mixture of Spanish and English. The dark, furious ink strokes taped everywhere give the entire room a nightmarish atmosphere. He takes them all down, one by one, and throws them into the kitchen trash. Even inside of the bin, they seem to give off a creepy energy. He grabs the cold coffee pot and pours coffee grounds onto them, and it helps a little to take their black magic away. 

The remaining papers, the ones that have not been scribbled through, Jack picks off of the walls and studies more carefully. Formulas over and over and over, a continuation of Gabe's work from before. Sometimes he sees a word he knows, but can't make sense of - _Los Muertos_ (doesn't that mean _the dead_ in Spanish?) or _Talon (_ (like a bird's claws?) or _shadow step_ ( _huh?_ ) or _gorilla_ (why with the monkeys again?) There are places mentioned on some of the notes, too. _Geneva_ (in Indiana? Or Switzerland?) _Rome_ (again, could be in Indiana or Italy.) The word _Cowboy_ pops up again and again, as does the name _Moira_ and, usually underlined heavily, the name _Gerard_. 

And then he finds his own name, except the mere act of writing those four letters seems to have triggered something in Gabe. His handwriting becomes ugly and sloppy and frantic. Jack's hand, gripping the paper, trembles as he reads: 

_**JACK WHY WONT YOU FUCKING DIE**_

Jack drops to his knees with a terrible, gasping sob. The tears come cold down his hot cheeks. He crumples the page in his hands, then shreds it with his shaking fingers, grunting with each rip, and he throws them across the room with a bellow of hurt and anger, but of course the weightless bits of torn paper do not fly far, and, instead, fall upon him like hideous confetti. He sits there, surrounded by the pieces, unable to believe the depth of his pain and grief in this moment. He cannot catch his breath, because each time he opens up for a mouthful of air, another sob is torn from him. 

What right does he have, to love Gabe so fiercely, when he knows that their future is so bleak and horrible?

It would be better for them both to just go their separate ways, to never speak again. Because he'd rather be heartbroken than ever feel as much hatred towards Gabe as Gabe apparently will come to feel about him. He'd rather let go of his love than watch it spoil into something so hideous. 

But what can he do? Kick Gabe out of his bed? Lock him out of his room? All when Gabe needs him the most. And to Gabe, it would feel like Jack was leaving him because he couldn't handle his problems. Gabe would never understand that Jack was giving up in order to avoid a romantic apocalypse. He thinks about Gabe, just on the other side of this wall, who texted him for help when he was scared and confused, who took so much comfort just from the simple scent of Jack's pillow. How can Jack even think about breaking up with him? He feels guilty immediately, which makes him cry harder. He's sorry for even thinking it, completely ashamed of himself, too. 

Why won't Gabe say what went wrong, he wants so desperately to know. Is it really something so bad as this? He picks up fistfuls of the paper and squeezes them in his fists, as though their further destruction might make the future they indicate less real. He clenches and clenches, until his knuckles are white, but the pressure in his fingers does nothing to distract from the agony in his heart. "I want to fix this, Gabe," he moans into the silent, empty room. He releases his handfuls of shredded paper and paws at his weeping eyes. "Gabe, why won't you tell me? I don't want you to hate me."

He rests his cheek against the floor and cries until he is empty, cries until there are no more sobs. Then he picks up every single piece of that torn page and stuffs them into the trash bin. The wet coffee seeps into the pages, the ink bleeds together, and the words become indecipherable. He feels a little bit freed from it, and turns to the sink to scrub his hands with soap and scalding water, until he feels clean. The other notes, the harmless ones, he stacks together and stuffs between the pages of one of Gabe's cookbooks, a place where Jack knows that Gabe will never find them. He might show Gabe one day, or he might destroy them; he hasn't decided yet. 

From a pile of fresh laundry on the chair in Gabe's room, Jack takes a soft, well-worn t-shirt and carries it back to its owner. Gabe has rolled onto his back and stares blankly up at the ceiling fan overhead. Jack is about to hand him the shirt, but he hesitates, and instead he drapes it over the nightstand and slides into bed against Gabe's chest. 

"Gabe," he says, his voice still a little raspy from the sobs, "Can I tell you something?"

Gabe tears his eyes away from the spinning fan blades to meet Jack's gaze. Jack is startled by how numb the other man looks. He has never seen him like this. 

"I think you'll be okay," Jack says - it sounds like a lie, even to his own ears. He is ashamed of how unconvincing he sounds. "And I'm never, ever going to leave you because of this. I - I -" 

He is going to just say the words, but he can't squeeze them out. His mouth goes dry. Will this even mean anything to Gabe if he says it right now? It'd be better to say it tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Whenever Gabe feels better. Jack knows he has always, his whole life, fallen too hard and too fast. Is this too soon? How many months have they been together? What is the social norm?

"I love you."

Jack blinks.

Gabe is smirking.

"Damn it, Gabe," Jack grumbles, "I was just about to say it! You can't just steal the moment from me!"

Gabe laughs. He looks a little bit more himself. "I just did. Maybe you should've sped it up a little bit, _Querido_."

Jack doesn't know what that means, but it sounds sexy, and he can't help but smile. He lets his head drop against Gabe's chest, and he looks up at him from behind long, golden lashes. Gabe is grinning back down at him, and he lifts a hand to brush through Jack's hair. How could Jack have thought, even for a second, that he could leave Gabe because of this? "I know that you feel like you've lost control," he says, and already he is blushing from what he's about to say, "But no matter what happens, you'll always be able to control me."

It's the kind of thing a character might say in those paperback erotica that they sold at the grocery store when he was a kid, shelved between the school supplies and the gossip magazines. When his mom was digging through the produce section for the fruits and vegetables that were up to her standards, Jack used to sneak over and read the love scenes. Or maybe this was more like some line from a porno, although he has never watched one before. He wishes he could take it back, because he's instantly embarrassed, but Gabe's face has changed, his eyes perked up, his smirk has become predatory. His fingers tangle in Jack's hair, gripping him tight at the scalp. "That's a dangerous thing to say, Jackie," Gabe says, "Giving me power like that."

"I mean it," Jack tells him. 

With a quick jerk of his hand, Gabe flips Jack onto his back on the mattress, and Jack lays stunned beneath him. One of Gabe's legs swings over his head, suddenly freed from the sweatpants, and before he can make sense of the weight on his chest or the expanse of Gabe's flat stomach above him like a sweaty, beautiful brown sky, his mouth is being pried apart by aggressive fingertips. When he opens his jaw for those digging, probing fingers, something thick and fleshy and warm is thrust down his throat, and it is a few heartbeats before he understands, and he wraps his lips over his teeth and begins to suck. Gabe's other hand is still tight in Jack's hair, and he pushes Jack down into the mattress. Those muscular thighs are wrapped around Jack's face, and Jack thinks this might be heaven. 

The next moments are a blur of bliss and pain for Jack. Gabe's hips rock, slow at first, but picking up speed. Jack can handle this no problem, his tongue and lips relishing Gabe's turgid flesh, until Gabe is fully erect, and every buck of his hips plunges him deeper down Jack's throat. Jack is gagging, crying, drooling. He is helpless to set the pace. The spasms of his protesting throat only seem to make it better for Gabe, who is making delirious noises of pleasure. Jack is eager to draw more of those sounds from him, so his head bobs more energetically as Gabe fucks his throat harder into the bed. The tears run thicker. Snot drips from his nose. He tries not to vomit. His hands grip the meat of Gabe's thighs, clenching them tight to distract himself. Gabe has one hand in his hair still, pinning him down, and his other hand clings to the headboard, using it to pull himself forward for each thrust. The bed is creaking with their movements. A dark wetness spreads across the crotch of Jack's jeans as his precum seeps into the fabric. He hasn't been this aroused in a long damn time, probably since before the last incident, before Gabe started withdrawing from him. Yes, this is the sexy, selfish, dangerous Gabe that Jack first felt attraction towards. There is nothing halfhearted or aloof about the way Gabe abuses Jack's throat with every violent push of his cock, the way he is milking Jack for every tear and every gag.

It's over so fast. Jack isn't even aware that Gabe has released, until Gabe slides from his mouth with a moan, and in the absence of his girth, Jack finally notices the puddle of cum on his tongue. He swallows with a sigh of satisfaction and uses the collar of his shirt to try and wipe away all of the tears and saliva and snot from his face. For a moment Gabe just remains there, straddling Jack's face, and Jack rests his cheek against one of those big thighs, drenched in sweat, just enjoying the nearness. Both men are heaving for breath. Both men feel a weight off their shoulders. 

Jack waits to see what Gabe will do. Will Gabe be in one of his moods where he wants to hold Jack close and let his walls down? Or will Gabe roll over and take a nap, or get up to go search the cupboards for something to make for dinner, or head for a shower? 

Except Gabe does none of these things. 

In the same way that Jack had known that Gabe needed to be given control, Gabe can tell that Jack needs to be given some love. So he slips down the bed, between Jack's legs, and slides his jeans down his pale white thighs. He kisses them, and Jack's legs break out in goosebumps, and he reaches down to lace his fingers into Gabe's hair, urging him on. Gabe is biting his thighs now, and Jack is writhing on the bed, the sharp press of those teeth sparking something heady and greedy in him. Then Gabe's fingers grip the base of his shaft, and his tongue extends, licking up all the way to the head. 

"Gabe," he whispers, "G-Gabriel!" His back arches off the mattress, and the entirety of him is taken into Gabe's hot mouth. Gabe's lips and tongue worship every inch of him, and his thighs are quivering, his breaths hitching. He throws his head back and shudders, struggling to keep himself together, to make this last just a little longer, but already he is at the edge.

"N-no!" he whimpers at himself, _not yet, keep your shit together, Morrison_. He tosses an arm over his face. He hates how Gabe was able to keep his cool the whole time, but here he is, a sobbing mess. The suction is drawing noises from him that he is so ashamed of, and then Gabe's tongue flicks across his slit, and he throws his thighs around Gabe's head, as though this might protect him somehow from further assault, when really all it does is encourage Gabe to torment him more. How is he so fucking good? 

He is so sorry for every dark thought he has had about Gabe today. The other Gabe, the stupid Gabe, the one from the future who has no fucking clue what he's talking about, he said so himself that in his timeline he and Jack were never together. So obviously, Jack tells himself, that timeline was the wrong one, a version of their world where everything went wrong _because_ they never fell in love when they should have. _This_ reality, his and Gabe's, is what was meant to happen. He can't even blame that other Gabe for hating him. He doesn't know what he, Jack, is like in that other world, but if he were not dating Gabe, wouldn't he hate Gabe, too? Just out of jealousy? Just out of unrequited desire? These thoughts are easy to have, his fears easily forgotten, when Gabe's mouth is so hot and hungry around him. 

He realizes his eyes have been closed, and he convinces them to open, one at a time, only to find Gabe staring up at him with such intensity, and with such a vicious smile wrapped around his cock, that again he's pivoting on the edge. "Shit!" he hisses, and he's nearly weeping from the effort of keeping himself together, but Gabe's perfect lips and the smooth, scalding inside of Gabe's cheek end him. He unravels then and there, his thighs drawing Gabe in, his hips delivering a desperate thrust down the other man's throat, and he spills everything he has. Gabe milks every drip from him, until the over-stimulation has Jack bucking and convulsing. Finally he pulls back, and his chin and cheeks are deliciously smeared with saliva, and he wipes the back of his hand across his face and licks his lips. 

Jack lays quivering back in the pillows, trying to catch his breath, trying to draw his body back into a solid state instead of the liquid puddle he has become. He wonders what Gabe will do now, what kind of mood he might be in. Will he get up and shower? Go look for some food? It's far from the time he would normally go to sleep, so Jack doubts that Gabe will feel like cuddling. That's all Jack thinks that he has the energy to do, right now. In fact, if Gabe is to get up to go watch television or to clean himself up, Jack thinks he might stay here. Maybe he can just take a short nap and recover? Because he feels totally unwound, right at the edge of his own sanity. 

But Gabe crawls back up the bed and collapses beside him. Jack is relieved. He throws an arm around Gabe, drawing him in closer, and lets his head droop onto Gabe's shoulder. They are both sticky, but Jack doesn't mind. "I love you," Jack sighs, because they have gotten over that obstacle of the awkward first time, and now he plans on saying that to Gabe as many chances as he can in his lifetime. He will tell Gabe he loves him every morning when they wake up, and every night when they go to bed, and at least a dozen times between those two points. He will tell Gabe he loves him until Gabe is rolling his eyes in response, until the phrase is nearly meaningless, but as long as Gabe returns the sentiment at least occasionally, then Jack won't mind his exasperation. He will tell Gabe he loves him whenever they get mad at each other, whenever times are hard, until both of them are too old for them to ever hate one another. Those three words will be his weapon with which he fights back against that other possible timeline.

Some other words creep into his thoughts, ugly words, the words written by the other Gabriel Reyes on the margins of that horrible note page. But before Jack's thoughts can become dark with the memory of them, Gabe has pushed his forehead against Jack's. "I love you, too," he mutters, as if the admission kind of embarrasses him, and those other words go slinking back into the dark, unused corners of Jack's brain, where hopefully they might soon be forgotten. 


	5. Geneva

After that, for a long time, there is peace. Understandably, at first, both Gabe and Jack are on edge. Each day goes by without incident, but Jack knows better than to get his hopes up. Then the days turn to weeks, and the weeks turn to months. It is peace from Gabe's problem, peace from their fighting, peace for Jack's heart, but this does not mean that the world itself is at peace. During this time, the Omnic Crisis is escalating. The SEP are stretched thin to fight this war. Jack doesn't have much time to worry about Gabe. They worry about staying alive, instead. On the battlefield, the pair of them seem untouchable. Jack is agile, brave, and strong. Gabe is vicious, clever, and fearless. The other soldiers look up to them, regardless of rank. Then the months become a year. Both Jack and Gabe get promotions, and then, surprisingly, an invitation: the U.N. wants them to join a new type of task force, one called Overwatch.

They leave that meeting shell-shocked. Of course they both plan to accept, but the future seems so unknowable now. That night, they decide to celebrate with dinner at their favorite Mexican restaurant. Jack isn't sure what they are celebrating, because he still can't tell if this Overwatch will be a good thing or a bad thing. Gabe notices that Jack is strangely quiet. He breaks the ice, makes a joke about looking up Mexican restaurants in Switzerland, and Jack looks at him and _finally_ realizes what this change will mean. They'll be nearly five thousand miles from his homophobic parents, his homophobic hometown, and from these homophobic soldiers. While a quick Google search on his phone tells him that gay marriage still isn't legal there, he learns that domestic partnership is, and at least the majority of the public supports gay rights. 

Gabe kicks his shin under the table and asks him what the hell is wrong. Jack blushes, grows flustered, nearly knocks over his margarita. "I was just thinking," he says.

"Obviously," Gabe sighs, rolling his eyes. When he looks back at Jack, his eyebrows are raised in an expectant, impatient expression. 

"Well," Jack mumbles, suddenly embarrassed, "About how we'll be able to go on dates over there."

Gabe glances around the restaurant and waves an arm, "So what is this?"

Jack takes a chip from the basket at the middle of the table and uses it to push a chunk of tomato around in his bowl of salsa. He keeps his eyes down at his fingers, at the chip, at the green flecks of cilantro. "You know what I mean. Like... sitting on the same side of the booth at dinner. Holding hands. Giving you flowers. Kissing you whenever I want. Those kinds of things."

Gabe groans and shakes his head dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. But you know I don't want flowers."

* * *

A few weeks later, they are flown to Geneva, Switzerland and brought to the new Overwatch headquarters. They have their own rooms, at opposite ends of the hall on the third floor. Jack is still stunned by everything that has happened so quickly; he can't even make himself believe that this space is really his own. He expects, as he unpacks his toiletries, that any second now someone will rush in and say there's been a mistake. Surely there's some shithole dorm he is meant to live in, or some Overwatch barracks where he'll be crammed in with all the other new recruits. When a knock comes on the door, he isn't even surprised. _Here we go_ , he thinks. He is suffering from some jet-lag, and he wishes they could have at least waited until the morning to fix their error. A single night in here would have been nice, especially when tomorrow's schedule is busy with meetings and a photoshoot in his new uniform. Except, on the other side of his door, there is no U.N. bureaucrat. Instead, it is Gabe. His hair is swept back. He has dress slacks on, and a button-up shirt, although the top buttons are undone, revealing his stunning pectoral muscles and the wisps of dark, handsome chest hair. He smells like aftershave. He is holding flowers. 

Jack laughs. "Where did you get those?"

" _¡Ay, Dios mío!_ " Gabe groans, "You're the biggest idiot I've ever known. Who asks that?" He shoves them into Jack's arms, trying to play cool, but he looks mildly flustered. "Well, Jack? You coming, or not?"

"Coming where?" Jack asks. He pushes his face into the bouquet, breathing in the aroma of white dittany. He has never, not once in his life, been given flowers before. Not unless you count the flower that his date to homecoming stuck into his buttonhole to match her corsage back in high school. He doesn't want that to count.

Gabe rolls his eyes. "Our first date, Jack. Do you need me to explain to you what a date is?"

A cab is waiting for them downstairs once Jack has thrown on some nicer clothes and freshened up his hair. They pile in the back together, leaning into one another in a way they have never done in public before. Jack knows Gabe hates to hold hands, hates it fiercely, but Gabe allows it for the cab ride. Jack stares out the window, as excited as a child. He has been sent to combat in Europe before, but seeing all of the architecture and people and culture pass by the cab while they navigate the heart of Geneva is unlike anything he has experienced.

They stop at a historical, old hotel, and Jack is confused at first, but Gabe takes him to a restaurant on the top floor. The walls are all panes of glass, so that from every seat, one can take in the magnificent view of the lake and, in the distance, the Alps. Somehow, Gabe had made them a reservation (when had he had time to manage that?) They are sat at a candlelit table right against the window, facing all the glorious landscape. Jack fights the urge to press himself against the glass, but he does convince Gabe to let him ask their waiter to take a picture of them with his phone. 

Jack has never been to a restaurant this fancy before. Do they even have places this nice in Indiana? It's like something from a movie. When Gabe learns that Jack has never eaten oysters before, he orders them as an appetizer. Jack finds it inexplicably arousing to watch Gabe slurp them down so expertly, but he can't stomach them himself. They are as salty as a mouthful of seawater, and the texture makes him actually gag. Gabe laughs at him. "I hope I never date anyone lamer than you," he says, "You're about as lame as I can stand."

"I hope you never date anyone but me, period," Jack says. 

He decides to splurge the whole night, ordering glass after glass of wine, and picking the fanciest-sounding entre on the menu. He even plans to order dessert - he wants to learn what this champagne and grapefruit vacherin thing is - but Gabe stops him from ordering it and asks for the check. Jack is horrified. The bill is well over one hundred Swiss francs. He tries to take the bill, offers to pay his half of it, but Gabe silences him by leaning across the table and pressing a kiss right to his mouth. The waiter, standing there the whole time, doesn't even react.

Despite their exhaustion, the night isn't quite over yet. Gabe wants to take him to one more place. The cab makes a stop at a tiny, curbside storefront in the historic district. They step in and the scent of cocoa is dizzying. Jack realizes, gleefully, that it is a chocolate shop. A real Swiss chocolate shop! 

"You know," Gabe sighs, once they've returned to the headquarters and are undressing for bed in Jack's room, "I thought you were full of shit about this dating crap. But tonight was kind of nice."

Jack is staring down at the streets of Geneva from one of the grand windows. Even though it is late now, the city is still so busy and alive. He tears himself away from the view to beam at Gabe, and he recalls a conversation he once had with the Other Gabe. Four small words that are sure to infuriate him, regardless of the timeline. But Jack thinks he knows this Gabe better even than the Other Gabe does, and so he says them anyway, out of spite, "I told you so."

As if he's in on the jab made at his Other self, Gabe doesn't even get mad. He simply rolls his eyes and, with the hook of a finger, beckons Jack into bed.

* * *

The Omnic Crisis gets worse long before it gets better, but together Jack and Gabe, along with the rest of Overwatch, fight to save the world. There are secret missions in cities that Jack used to only hear about on television - Tokyo, Rome, London, Shanghai - and combat in exotic places like the deserts of North Africa, or the ancient forests of central Europe, or the mountains of the Middle East. Sometimes, Jack and Gabe are right there with the others, shooting down Omnics and blowing up Omniums like they are still in the SEP, but more and more often, Gabe, who has been named Strike Commander, keeps them both back from the front lines, where they lead the others behind computer screens. Gabe shines in his new role. He seemed unstoppable before, but now he seems Godlike. 

It's not all violence and war, though. Dates happen, too, although it isn't easy to get more than an hour or two to themselves most days. They like to get gelato from a parlor downtown and sit outside to people-watch while they gossip about their new co-workers. Jack likes pretty much all of them and Gabe hates pretty much all of them, although they both agree that Ana Amari is an unbelievable woman, even among this remarkable bunch. Other times they leave the training facilities behind and go jogging in the park. Jack likes to fall a little behind on purpose, so that he can watch the ripple of Gabe's muscles and the glittery sweat that trickles down the contours of his back. In the summer, they spend a lot of free time at the lake, and during the winter, they head to the saunas. Jack loves Geneva, loves Europe, loves being far away from his religious parents and all the Bible-thumpers back home who would be horrified to hear that their hometown hero was dating another man, a Mexican-American man, to top it all off. 

But as far as Gabriel Reyes himself is concerned, nothing remarkable happens during those years. The threat of his time traveling or epilepsy goes nearly forgotten. They both hope that the worst is over. It feels good for them both to put all of it behind them. Well, not entirely behind them. Kept hidden in a folder between some war history books in Jack's room are all of Gabe's notes that he has saved. When Gabe is out of town for meetings and interviews and missions, when Jack knows for certain there is no way he will be caught, he pulls the notes out and tries to make sense of them. The mathematics he has long since given up on, but the places and names he can make out are clues that might one day help. He is unable to devote much time to them. After all, he has a world to save, and Gabe is with him more often than not. But since one of the first words he could initially pick out among the scribble was Geneva - and look at where they are, now - Jack is convinced this is a worthwhile pursuit.

It is bittersweet for Jack when the final Omnium is shut down and the Omnic Crisis is declared over by the United Nations. They had succeeded in saving many lives and preventing the destruction of many cities. He and Gabe, and all the founding members of Overwatch, become international heroes. There are posters with his face on them. People flood his parents's mailbox back home in Indiana with fanmail. The whole world cares about the things he does and says, the clothes he wears, the places he goes. They are celebrities, famous for the good that they have done for the world. He should be relieved, right? More than relieved. He should be proud of himself, and overwhelmed with his sense of accomplishment, and thrilled that he has touched so many lives. But even as he is awarded medals, featured on the covers of newspapers and magazines, interviewed on television talk shows, and heralded a savior, he is inexplicably sad. 

Gabe notices. He assumes that Jack is exhausted, misreading how withdrawn and uninterested he has become. They are all exhausted, after all. But he feels a little bit lost, a little bit helpless, now that Jack isn't smiling at him anymore. He finally breaks down and asks him one morning, "Did I do something to piss you off that I can't remember?"

The Overwatch headquarters has a set of rooms for each of the founding members, although most of them live off-site most of the year on other bases or at their own houses. Gabe and Jack are constantly shipped from one corner of the globe to the next, but they've always considered the Geneva HQ to be home. There is an impressive kitchen, usually used by the chefs and caterers to cook up for meals for visiting diplomats or to prepare for big events, but today Gabe is using the stainless steel gas stove to make them breakfast from a box of instant pancake mix. In an attempt to cheer Jack up, he is wearing an apron, and even serves Jack a pancake that is heart-shaped and perfectly fluffy. Jack smiles at the plate, but the happiness doesn't quite reach his eyes. That is when Gabe knows - it is time for an intervention. 

"No," Jack says, "What do you mean?"

"What's up with you lately?" Gabe asks, dropping into the stool beside Jack. They are seated at a stainless steel island, watching the next blob of batter begin to solidify in the pan on the stove. 

Jack sighs, and Gabe knows that he was right. There _is_ something wrong. 

"Come on, Jack, spit it out!"

Jack decides he is tired of bearing the weight of this on his own. "The Omnic Crisis is over," he says, "We won. I'm glad it's all over. No more bloodshed. But... they won't need Overwatch anymore. They'll disband us. And I'm worried that I'll go back to Bloomington, and you'll go back to L.A. and we'll never see each other again."

Gabe rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and goes back to the stove. He takes the pan by its handle and, with one quick flick of his wrist, the pancake flips to its uncooked side. He lets it rest on the burner once more and turns his attention back to Jack. Standing in that apron, with his hands on his hips, he looks so absurd that Jack's smile becomes genuine, the sadness shed in the blink of an eye. "You're so damn dramatic, you know that, Jackie?" 

Jack laughs and it turns into a sigh as he drizzles syrup over his heart-shaped pancake. "I know. I wish sometimes I could be more like you."

"How so?" Gabe asks. He takes the pan off the flame and dumps a second heart-shaped pancake onto Jack's plate, right on top of the first one. 

Jack begins to butter it while it's still hot. "I don't know," he mumbles, "You just seem so carefree about all of this. I wish I could turn my brain off and stop worrying."

When Gabe doesn't immediately answer, Jack looks up to find him suddenly serious. "Do you think I care less about us, Jack?" he asks. His tone is pure anger. 

Jack regrets what he has said, and he tries to backpedal. "That's not what I meant!"

But Gabe turns down the gas and comes around the island to take the seat beside Jack again. His expression has turned from fury to something softer, maybe even sad. "Do you _want_ to go back to Bloomington?" he asks. 

Jack doesn't even have to consider it. The past few years of his life have been spent marveling at how the world outside of Bloomington can be. Allof the founding members of Overwatch know about his relationship with Gabe, and no one even cares. No one has quoted Leviticus, no one has passed out pamphlets, no one has asked who is the "pitcher" or the "catcher" in the bedroom. Ana even went with him to a gay bar for a pride celebration this year, while Gabe was working away at Watchpoint Gibraltar. These people feel like his family. In some ways, they are. He has seen Gabe teaching Ana's young daughter, Fareeha, phrases in Spanish. They spent Christmas at Torbjorn's home, his wife putting out a feast and treating them each like another one of their many children. Reinhardt wept actual happy tears when Jack came out to him. How could he think, even fleetingly, of returning to the closet after all of this? 

"No. Not at all."

" _Gracias a Dios,_ " Gabe says, "I was determined to make it work, but corn farming is _not_ my idea of a good time."

Jack grins. He thinks he understands what Gabe is implying, but he really can't believe it. So, he asks, just for clarification, "So if I'd said yes, you would have come back to Bloomington with me?"

Gabe shrugs, "It's the absolute last place I'd want to go, I'm not gonna lie. I suppose Antarctica might be worse, or fucking Siberia or something. You know how I hate the cold. But, Jesus, corn fields? It's a pretty bleak future. You're worth it, though, Jack. I don't mean that in a, y'know, sappy way or whatever. But you said you don't want to go back, so it doesn't matter. We'll move to L.A. Or maybe the U.N. can help us find somewhere here. We'll figure it out."

This is the only conversation Gabe has ever allowed about their future, and Jack is astonished by it. It's like he had been mowing his lawn and come across a diamond in the grass, or diving into the lake only to discover he can suddenly walk on water. This is a big, rare, wonderful, impossible topic for them to be discussing right now. He is in awe of this moment, will treasure it forever, and feels that, in some way, these words have changed them. 

"Gay marriage is legal in California, right?" 

Gabe leaps forward, pushing his fingers to Jack's lips, silencing him. "Shut up! Shut up, Morrison! Shut! Up!" he shouts, "If you use this as a segue way to propose, I will say no. This - " he gestures around them, at the pancakes and the stainless steel kitchen and Jack in his pajamas and him in his apron, " - is ridiculous. I will say no, and then I will kill you with my bare god damned hands."

Jack opens his mouth, taking in those fingers, and he sucks on them with a devilish smile. Gabe gives a moan of frustration which melts into a moan of excitement, and the pancakes go forgotten. They will eat them cold, later, once they've finished devouring one another first. 


	6. Jesse McCree

Watchpoint Grand Mesa is one of Jack's favorite bases, which surprises him because it's right at home in the United States. But Grand Mesa, Colorado feels a world away from the endless flat expanse of cornfields in Indiana. The earth here has birthed mountains in the whole spectrum of the rainbow - unapologetic oranges, shades of rust or brilliant scarlet, even breathtaking purples. Jack knows _America the Beautiful_ by heart and has never understood the lyrics "purple mountains majesty" until he arrived here. It seems impossible that these colors have occurred in nature. Whenever he looks out upon the landscape, he feels more like he has fallen into scenery painted by an artist. In the summer and spring, the forests's canopies turn everything green and alive. In winter, it is all blanketed in pure white snow. This time of year, though - _autumn_ \- is Jack's favorite, because the foliage has changed for the season, and all their new shades of ochre and gold and saffron and umber and vermilion bleed into the ranges. All of this, when reflected across the surfaces of the crystal clear lakes and rivers, can sometimes feel dizzying to Jack. He loves to go hiking when he is off the clock and get lost for hours out there, which drives Gabe crazy. The Alps are beautiful, too, but they seem more tame somehow. This part of the country is so wild, and when Jack breathes in the air, he can almost imagine himself out here two hundred years ago, panning the rivers for gold in a cowboy hat and chaps. 

"You're an idiot," Gabe sighs, when Jack confesses this to him, "You really think everyone out here wore that shit? Plus, wasn't the Gold Rush in California? I thought you were the one who got a hard-on for American history."

"There was one in Colorado, too," Jack says, "It began in 1858." He read this from a pamphlet he picked up his first time in the airport, when Watchpoint Grand Mesa was newly built. He still has that pamphlet somewhere after all these years, he thinks. His intentions were to collect keepsakes from Overwatch's early days, maybe even start a scrapbook or something, but he's been far too busy. 

They are seated around an oval table in one of the meeting rooms, although there are no windows in here through which to admire the picturesque surroundings. Instead, there is only a screen, onto which an administrative assistant for the Security Department is projecting his laptop. The Omnic Crisis has been over for some months now, and, despite Jack's fears that it would be disbanded, it has been turned into a peace organization instead. Watchpoint Grand Mesa, throughout the conflict, was used primarily for weapons development and testing. Now that the fighting has ended, all of it is being shut down. Watchpoint Grand Mesa will become, for the most part, a heavily guarded storage facility. They are meeting with members of the Security Department to discuss the benefits of outsourcing security and transferring the Overwatch security staff to the Watchpoints and bases that will remain active. A lot of people have lost their jobs, now that Overwatch is changing its focus. Jack hopes to minimize this, although ultimately the United Nations has final say. 

They aren't paying much attention to the reports they're being shown, though. It is Friday, and ever since the Omnic Crisis ended, he and Gabe actually get weekends off now. It's amazing. He doesn't think he's ever had weekends off, not since joining the SEP. Jack had this idea, since it might be their last time here, to go on a tour of the national park. He's seen advertisements for it all over the place whenever he comes to Colorado. It looks like a driver takes his or her passengers into a Jeep and on a safari to find the native animals and to see the noteworthy landmarks. Reinhardt has asked him to text him a picture of a moose, although Jack doesn't think he's likely to see one this far south. Still, he promised Reinhardt that if he happened to see one, he absolutely would. Gabe wasn't so sold on the idea of touring a national park from the back of a tourist trap Jeep, but whenever Jack gets this excited about something, Gabe finds that he can't say no. 

So Jack, normally hyper-focused on meetings, taking notes and asking questions and sitting up straight in his chair, is a little distracted today, and he nearly misses the name that comes up, just for a second, on the screen. 

"Wait! Go back!" he says, fighting the urge to rise from his chair. He knows that his voice is too eager. Everyone else is immediately suspicious.

Jack still hasn't forgotten the notes that the Other Gabe left behind, although it has been years since he last sneaked them out of their hiding place to look at them. Each of the clues that he was so certain of led absolutely nowhere. He has, for the most part, given up. Gabe has been living without incident for so long now that it doesn't seem important to stress over the notes. The dates don't have years, or the equations have no explanations of their formulas, or the first names have no last names. Except one. Jesse McCree. Jack had searched the name in every database and came up with nothing. He had long since abandoned all efforts, assuming Gabe might have spelled it wrong, or perhaps it's merely someone's nickname. A woman named Jessica, perhaps? He tried that, too.

The administrative assistant has just opened a presentation off a thumb drive. The thumb drive has many files on it, which had been listed on the screen for just a few seconds before the presentation was clicked and opened. One of them, the one that Jack has spotted, is called McCree_Jesse.

"What is that one?" Jack asks, "McCree?"

The Head of Security, a severe-looking but handsome woman with short-cut strawberry blonde hair, heaves a sigh, as though the last thing in the world she wants to do is to explain this to Overwatch's Strike Commander Reyes and his second-in-command. "It's really nothing, Sir," she says, "Just one of the Deadlock Gang. They're a bunch of kids that cause trouble. Normally they operate south and west of us, usually following the historic Route 66. Their base is down there, a place called the Deadlock Gorge. They are very old school, no real threat to us here. But recently their leader, Elizabeth Ashe, has been spotted in southern Colorado, near Mesa Verde, so we've sent out copies of their wanted posters and dossiers on all the known members just to be safe. It's mere protocol. Nothing to worry about. Just some kids with their daddies' guns."

The assistant clicks on the document, opening it. Jack is finally able to put a face to the name. Jesse is definitely not a Jessica. He's just a teenager, no older than 16 or 17 in his wanted poster. His face is scruffy, like he wants to start growing a beard, and his shaggy brown hair is a true mess. He looks like the lovechild between a cowboy and a member of a leather daddy biker gang. His eyes, though, are soft, and warm, and cheerful. Maybe he'll even be handsome when he's older. Most of the other photos included in the dossier are pulled from grainy security camera footage, where he's generally in the company of a white-haired young woman. So this is why Jack never found Jesse McCree before. He's just a kid. Back when Jack started looking into him, he probably hadn't even started puberty yet. Of course there were no records of him then. His slate had been clear. 

When the meeting is over, Jack lingers in the room for a while, pretending to take extra time organizing his stack of notes in order to get a moment alone with Gabe. "I need you to send me on a mission," he says, once everyone else has left the room, "Make something up for me. Or say it's confidential. I just need a few days, or a week tops, to look into something."

Jack has never requested anything like this before and is usually the last person whom Gabe would send on a confidential mission. Gabe knows him well enough that he can sense there is something more to this. "What aren't you telling me, Jack?" Gabe asks.

Jack is determined to keep the notes a secret. He has never forgotten how weak and frightened they made Gabe feel. For many nights afterward, Gabe had nightmares about the black scribbles all over the walls. "It's just that kid," he admits vaguely, "Jesse McCree. The name. I'm sure I've heard it somewhere. I want to check into him. I just have a hunch."

"So you think he's involved with the Omnics somehow? Some kid?"

"No," Jack says. He can tell, from Gabe's incredulous tone, that he won't be so easily convinced without more information. 

"That's all that should matter to me, as Overwatch's Strike Commander," Gabe says, "Our job is to protect people. To mend the broken world. Not to go on some wild fucking goose chase after a name I mentioned in a fit of insanity."

Jack is floored that Gabe has somehow come so close to the truth. His face droops into a frown. "You aren't insane," he says, "You predicted the airport thing. And you knew this kid somehow. Will know him, I mean."

"Damn it, Jack! It's been years and years. That shit is over. Can't you let it go?" Gabe snarls. He shakes his head and runs a hand though his hair. Jack notices for the first time that Gabe has really begun to look _mature_. Somewhere between a young man and an old one. There are wrinkles beneath his eyes now, and every muscle in him from head to toe seems to be just slightly exhausted. 

When do they start hating each other? Jack wonders. Because even with them arguing this way, his heart feels swollen and painful from the intensity of his feelings for the other man. "I don't want to fight," Jack says, "So if you don't want me to go, that's fine. I'll drop it. But I wish you'd indulge me, just this once."

"Just once, Jack? I've indulged you every day of my entire damned life. Do you think I'd be here at all, if it weren't for you?" 

They stare at each other across the table. Gabe is breathing hard. He looks furious. Jack is able, then, to imagine a life where they are enemies. A life where Gabe is tired of doing everything Jack's way, and where Jack is tired of Gabe's nihilism and temper and sarcasm. A life where Jack craves a more genuine, gentle Gabe and Gabe craves a Jack who is less wholesome and naive. 

"I love you," Jack says. It feels like he is reminding himself. 

Gabe inhales. He closes his eyes. He exhales. "I love you, too," he says, "I'll go with you." 

* * *

They fly into Flagstaff, Arizona, because it is the airport with easiest access to the Deadlock Gorge via Route 66. Jack feels foolish for being so impressed by Colorado, because everything is even more fantastic and more alien in Arizona by tenfold. Flagstaff itself is nothing special, but as soon as they've picked up their rental car and are on the road, it's all cacti and plateaus and rock formations that make Jack feel like he is on Mars. He props his feet up on the dashboard and gawks out the windshield. All that they pass is ghost town after ghost town. Jack watches the abandoned relics of Americana speed by. There are ancient gas stations, hundred year old cars with flattened tires that have discolored and rusted beneath the harsh sun, diners with broken-in windows and sagebrush growing through cracks in the parking lots. Between each sight and the next is simply a wasteland. It is flatter than Colorado, flatter than Indiana, even, until there is a mesa the size of a mountain range rising up suddenly on the horizon, with no warning, no gradual incline up the slopes, but a huge wall made of earth; or rocks that grow jagged from the ground to the sky, like reaching arms of a subterranean giant; or a tree shockingly, unbelievably alive despite the arid world around it, its boughs barren and gnarled. Jack is a little bit frightened by the emptiness of it all, and these disruptions in the emptiness somehow make it worse. He fidgets in his seat as time creeps by. Sometimes a country radio station will come through, scratchy and faint, but mostly they drive in silence. There isn't even enough service out here to play music from his cell phone. As the sun sinks lower, the blood-red stones melt into the rosy sky, and he feels like he's inside of a Dali painting. 

At first, Gabe is quiet. Jack knows he thinks this is a waste of their time, of Overwatch's resources, but the longer he drives, the more he opens up and acts like himself. He hums along to whatever might come through on the radio, points out animals or interesting landmarks that he sees, teasing that Jack got his Jeep tour after all, and, at dusk, when the air has grown cool, he rolls down the window and grins into the breeze. He is making jokes again. He flirts with Jack like he hasn't in ages. Jack is happy to be beside him, breathing the same air. He imagines finding a hotel for the night, a dimly-lit room that smells of chlorine from the pool, a single king-sized bed which Gabe will lie back on, and he will straddle Gabe and ride him until they are both moaning over the drone of news reports from the television. After they are blitzed out from the pleasure, they'll shower, and Jack will fall asleep to the smell of Gabe's new favorite bodywash, a spicy, woodsy scent that's like home to him. Even the memory of the scent has him smiling, and he bets if he leans over right now and scoots in close enough over the glove compartment between them, that he can find a whiff of it from beneath Gabe's clothes.

"Where are we stopping for the night?" Jack asks.

"Nowhere, yet," Gabe says, "First, we're going to get a drink."

Jack is surprised that Gabe would do that when they're on a mission - except, no. He's not surprised at all. It's _exactly_ the kind of thing that Gabe would do. He can only laugh. "Don't forget that we have to find that kid tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? No. You misunderstand me. We're finding him tonight."

* * *

The sun has finished setting by the time that they encounter a single pocket of civilization alongside the highway. It was once a town, although everything is boarded-up and abandoned now, except for a single bar. Its neon, flashing beer signs are like beacons in the black desert. The parking lot is crowded, mostly with monstrous motorcycles and eighteen wheelers, and it is more vehicles in one place than they have passed the entire time that they have been driving down Route 66. They're only about thirty minutes from Deadlock Gorge itself, so it seems like a suitable enough place to begin their investigation. Gabe pulls over and, without a word to Jack, hops out of the car to begin changing clothes - right there in the parking lot. Jack gawks at him as he slips into a snug-fitted black t-shirt with a skull on the front and a pair of well-worn, frayed jeans. 

"Do I need to change, too?" Jack asks, but Gabe just snaps at him to quit asking questions, to play along and act casual. 

Jack has always known that Gabe prefers work like this, a kind of undercover, covert, getting-his-hands-dirty operation, but he has never had the pleasure of watching Gabe in action. This kind of mission doesn't suit Jack, so Gabe never sends him on them, but he hears the stories afterwards. It always fills him with pride, to think that somehow he, Jack Morrison, has managed to date a _total badass._ And not simply date one, either. They've been together nearly a decade now. Calling Gabe his boyfriend seems almost ridiculous when they've been together so long, but he can't think of a better word for what their relationship is. Either way, Gabe is a badass, and he is Jack's, and it makes Jack feel a little bit like a badass himself. It has never once occurred to him that there are children all over the planet who think that he is badass, too, who have posters of him in their bedrooms and who watch his television interviews with wide-eyes and dreams of becoming something more than they are. For some reason, to him, it feels like Gabe is the cool one, and he's just there along for the ride. And so Jack follows him across the parking lot and tells himself that he will not ask any questions, even though he is full of them, but Gabe knows what he is doing. He trusts Gabe. 

Like a scene from a movie, when they push open the doors, every single patron and employee looks up to watch them enter. For several heartbeats, the only sound is the classic rock music that plays in the background. Everyone seems to hold their breath, Jack included. He's nervous as hell. Gabe doesn't miss a step, simply crosses to the bar and swings up onto a stool. Jack follows and takes the stool beside him, aware of the dozens of pairs of eyes on his back. Gabe waves the bartender over, and since the man was openly staring, he has no choice but the come take his order. After grumbling about the shitty tap selection, Gabe gets them each a 420 Strain Mango Kush. Jack keeps expecting the volume to raise in the bar, but it never does, not even when the bartender slides their beers down to them. He thinks that maybe if each of them weren't huge men, built the way they are, all muscle and broad as oxen, then maybe there would be some trouble. But even the biggest man in the place doesn't look enough to take on either of them, not even if every single patron threw themselves into the fight. So Jack's anxiety just settles into amusement. 

He takes a sip of his beer. Nearly spits it out. "This tastes like - "

Gabe barks with laughter. He doesn't give a shit if they're the center of attention. 

One man, covered in hair everywhere except for the top of his tattooed, bald head, drops down onto the stool beside Jack. He's got this tough guy act going on, all leather and piercings, and Jack decides that he'll simply smile, as if he's nothing to him. The smile seems to piss the guy off. "Where are you from?" the stranger growls, "Ain't from around here, that's for sure."

Jack is debating whether to tell the truth or not, but Gabe speaks up instead. "Long time ago, yeah," he lies, effortlessly, "Then I moved to L.A. Came back here on vacation with my boyfriend. Decided to show him my roots. Haven't been here in, damn, near fifteen years."

It must have been an acceptable answer, because, many pitchers of beer later, Jack finds that they've been playing pool and swapping stories with the bikers for over an hour now. He hasn't been this drunk since the night he got margaritas with Gabe, the night many years ago when he realized he was deep, deep in fucking love, and now, drunk again, the sight of Gabe bending over the pool table in those jeans has his head reeling. There's a woman with the longest acrylic fingernails that Jack has ever seen in his life, and her breasts are similarly excessive and fake. Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" is playing, and she and Jack have been grinding against each other and singing aloud ever since the music switched to 80's classic pop. He wants the scene to make Gabe jealous - he's dancing with a woman - but he's too drunk to realize that he isn't fooling anyone, especially not Gabe. Every time Gabe knocks one of the balls into a pocket, Jack cheers a little too loud. When he completes a particularly impressive trick, Jack is leaping all over him and smothering him in kisses. Without even trying, Jack has pretty much sold the whole bar on the idea of two vacationing boyfriends driving the historic Route 66. In fact, for the moment, that's what this feels like to him, too. He has entirely forgotten about Jesse McCree.

Gabe, however, has not. When the pool game is over - Gabe won, of course - and there is discussion about whether to start a new round or move to the darts, he asks, "So, any of you guys seen Jesse? I'm looking for him."

Jack nearly chokes on his sip of beer. It drips down his chin, onto his shirt, and he stares at Gabe like a deer in the headlights, like a boy who has been walked in on while masturbating, like a child caught with his hand in the candy jar. He can't believe how perfectly casual the question came out. 

"Fuck Jesse," snarls the man with the head tattoos, "What the fuck do you want with him?"

"Believe me," Gabe says, "I'm not looking to start any trouble. Jesse and I are cool. The fucker just owes me some money."

"Who doesn't he owe money to?" Jack's dance partner laughs, and her breath reeks of tobacco. 

Muffled discussion breaks out. No one knows exactly where Jesse or the Deadlock Gang are at any given time, but some suggestions are thrown out. "He ain't old enough to drink yet," someone protests, when the names of what must have been bars are thrown around. They finally come to an agreement that the best place to search for Jesse McCree at this time of night is the Panorama Diner. It's a place open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the Deadlock Gang spends a lot of time there since many of their members are still too young to get into bars. The food is shit, Gabe and Jack are told, and the owner is an asshole. But the place is always pretty dead, and so they put up with the rowdy kids because it's all the business they get some nights. 

"Their milkshakes ain't bad," one of the guys says.

Another adds, "When I'm hungover, their chicken fingers and onion rings are life-saving."

Gabe grabs a napkin and asks for a pen, which Jack's dance partner produces from the depths of her Ed Hardy purse. About half a dozen people start shouting directions to Gabe, and he jots them down as best as he can. When he straightens up and tucks the napkin into his back pocket, he winks at Jack. "C'mon, _Querido_. Let's go visit our friend."

Jack is reluctant to leave. He feels so alive, so good, right there in that bar. "Take On Me" by A-ha is playing. A woman with a yellow and green mohawk has offered to pierce his ears in the bathroom, and - _hell yes -_ he wants to, because everyone only gets one shot at life, and he figures he should make the best of it. But Gabe has called him _Querido_ , which can melt Jack at the best of times. Now, with the booze sloshing around inside of him, the word nearly makes him weepy. He loves Gabe so damn much. He _has_ to go find Jesse McCree. He has to save Gabe. 

They say their goodbyes to their new friends and make their way for the exit. As they're passing the bar, Jack slides a bill out of his pocket and stares at the bartender, although his eyes refuse to focus. "A couple more pitchers for our friends," he says, and the men and women he has just left around the pool table all shout and raise their glasses towards him. In that moment, _he_ feels like the cool one. 

Gabe gives him a funny look that Jack doesn't understand, until they've made their way back to the car and Gabe shoves him against the trunk. It's pitch black to the horizon, except for the neon glow from the building and the single flickering streetlamp illuminating the parking lot. Moths flit around the source of light. Jack can just hear the chorus of the song coming from inside, but it's nearly lost beneath the chirping of countless unseen crickets. "That was _hot_ ," Gabe tells him, his lips curling up into a smile. He slaps Jack across the face, and it doesn't hurt, but Jack is stunned by it. It was the last thing he expected. When he raises a hand to touch his hot cheek, Gabe grabs both of his wrists and pins them against the roof of the car, over their heads. Jack is helpless as Gabe's mouth ambushes his own. Gabe uses his lips like dual weapons, each stroke and pull of them is fatal, but then a sweep of his tongue and Jack is brought back to life again. That mouth wreaks havoc on him. Jack sobs. His legs go weak, quivering beneath his weight, and it seems like Gabe's grip on his wrists is the only thing supporting him. He tries to push back against the kiss, tries to take some control back, but Gabe is all predator, and Jack is so happy to surrender. 

It seems to him that they'll fuck right there. Forget the hotel room. A parking lot suits their needs just fine. And if they are caught, if the patrons of the bar spill out onto the cracked asphalt to watch Gabe ruin him, then lucky them. Jack only wishes he could watch, too.

But then Gabe tears himself away. Jack whimpers, looks up at him with wounded, pleading puppy-dog eyes. All he gets is a smack across the ass, much harder than the slap to his face, and then Gabe is abandoning him, crossing around to his side of the car. Jack swallows. Red-faced and almost out of breath, he collapses into the passenger seat. Jesse McCree seems wholly insignificant right now. In fact, Jack thinks, he wishes he had never heard the name. 

* * *

The diner isn't far, but the drive gives Jack some time to cool down. They leave behind the flatlands and the road has become treacherous; one wrong turn of the wheel and they will plummet five hundred feet down the walls of rock into the river valley below. He drinks a bottle of water, then a second, trying to sober himself up. He feels less drunk from the beer now and more drunk off lust, but Gabe hasn't spoken since they left the parking lot. His eyes are dark, focused, intense. They come around a curve in the canyons and are nearly blinded by their destination. It's got lights on inside and out, a harsh interruption from the still desert darkness. The place is built in the same hundred year old style of all the diners that they have passed, except this one is far from abandoned. There are motorcycles parked out front, and through the windows Jack can see that there are people seated at booths and tables, even though it's nearly eleven o'clock. Gabe pulls off the highway to park between the bikes, and Jack feels his heart hammering against his ribs, so hard that he can barely fill his lungs with breath. He isn't sure what is making him more anxious - the anticipation that they will soon learn something about Gabe's experiences, or the fear that this will be another dead end. 

"You throw yourself at Omnics like you're invincible, but _this_ has you scared?" Gabe laughs. 

Jack smiles, but it is a weak one. "Scared to death."

"Have you thought about what you'll say?" Gabe asks.

Jack shakes his head. Might as well be honest. 

"Oh, Jack," Gabe sighs, fondly, and he reaches over to ruffle Jack's blond tresses, "Now you know why I don't take you along on my covert ops missions."

They get out of the car and make their way to the door. Jack has had enough to drink that, upon stepping inside the diner, the smell of greasy food simultaneously causes a sharp twist of hunger and a wave of nausea so overpowering that he wants to vomit. Thematic music blares from a glowing jukebox. He expects, like at the bar, to find that all of the patrons and staff here have turned to stare at them, but instead they are ignored by everyone but a curly-haired waitress who pauses to call to them as she moves around the restaurant with a tray of milkshakes balanced on her palm, "Just take a seat and I'll be right with you!"

Jack's eyes scan the place. Who looks the most like they might know about Jesse McCree? 

But then, there he is.

He is siting at a booth near the back. There is a white-haired young woman seated beside him, her shoulder against the window. She is slicing through a grilled chicken breast with her knife and fork, her cherry-red lips pursed into a severe line. She is a singular pillar of levelheadedness, surrounded by noise and chaos. Across from them, filling the other side of the booth, sits an Omnic, a massive one, one of the largest humanoid Omnics that Jack has ever seen. The boy himself, Jesse McCree, is using the straw from his soft drink to shoot wet wads of napkin at the diners in the booth across from them. These young men, obviously friends of his, probably also in the gang, are shouting at each other, shouting at Jesse, their mouths full of fries and chili dogs and onion rings, and it hits Jack for the first time that he has come all this way to question a teenager. At seventeen, he's still just a child, coltish and rowdy, not even legally old enough to carry the two revolvers in holsters at each hip. He looks like he is playing dress up in his father's or big brother's clothes. Even the tattoo visible on his arm seems almost like a stick-on temporary tattoo, the kind you wet and hold to your skin in the hopes that it transfers cleanly. Jack knows that it isn't, no more than those revolvers are water guns, but he understands that he has made a mistake. He never should have come out here.

Before Jack can express his revelation, Gabe has started across the diner, taking a boot behind Jesse. The roughhousing does not stop. The waitress, visibly harried, her hair falling from its bun, appears at their table as soon as they have sat down to deliver menus and take their drink orders. Gabe tells her they'll just have two waters, and now it's too late for them to just turn back around. 

"Hey! Lady! Refills, please?" one of Jesse's friends shouts, and the waitress sighs, brushes a stray curl from her brow, and disappears to the back. 

"I'm going to just ask him," Jack says, because he wants to get this over with. He can't stand to sit there a second longer than they have to. 

"No," Gabe says, "Let me handle this. You have no idea what you're doing."

But Jack shakes his head, emboldened by the remaining buzz of alcohol in his brain, "It's fine. I'll just be casual about it."

So he stands up and turns to face Jesse McCree. The boy is sweeping onion rings through a puddle of ketchup on his plate. It isn't Jesse who reacts first to Jack's presence, but the young woman beside him, who looks up through eyes as red as her lipstick. She is cool and mean and unimpressed, a look Gabe sometimes gives people when they aren't worth his energy. "Can we help you?" Her voice is sugary sweet, with a long, country drawl. Jack thinks she would be beautiful if she didn't look like a viper. 

When he offers her a smile, it doesn't win her over the way it does for everyone else, so he looks to Jesse instead. "You're Jesse McCree, right? Can I ask you a couple of things?"

Their corner of the diner goes silent, except for the clicks of safeties going off behind Jack's back. He glances over his shoulder to see that the whole table of boys have raised their guns. Jack simply blinks, his smile not faltering. He almost laughs. The amusement on his face makes the boys look uneasy. This isn't how things normally go, when they whip out their weapons. 

"Casual, hm?" Gabe asks, rolling his eyes. He is equally unimpressed by the kids peacocking with their weapons. They've faced much, much worse.

"Put them down," Jack sighs, "You boys allergic to questions or something?"

When they do not, Jack shrugs.

"Fine. Be that way. I just have a few to ask. Do you mind if we step outside? We can talk right in front of this window, so that your pals can still point their guns at me the whole time. I swear it won't take longer than five minutes. Your food won't even get cold."

Jesse acts like he's about to get up, but the woman puts a hand on his shoulder and shoves him back down. "Anything you need to say to Jesse, you can say it in front of me."

"Sure. Okay. Whatever," Jack says. He shrugs again. "I wanted to ask you if you know a man named Gabriel Reyes."

Jesse takes a sip of his soda, studying Jack through eyes that are even kinder and lovelier in person. They are not the hardened eyes of a boy in a gang. Jack is certain then, that Jesse will grow up to be handsome like Gabe, but without his meanness, without such high walls around his heart. "Sorry. No."

Jack is speechless. He feels himself deflate. What was he expecting? 

Someone behind Jack, one of the other boys, asks, "Ain't that the name of some foreign politician or something?"

But the woman shakes her head, "The Strike Commander of Overwatch is named Gabriel Reyes." And her eyes shift to Gabe, who is still seated at the booth but has turned to watch the exchange over his shoulder. 

JJack swallows. His mouth tastes overwhelmingly of beer, and he wishes that he had waited for the waitress to bring him water, first. "Apologies. Do you think your parents might recognize the name? I have reason to believe that you, or someone close to you, has some kind of connection with Gabriel Reyes."

"My folks are dead," Jesse says. 

"S-sorry to hear that," Jack says. He doesn't know where to take this. Painc is rising in him like bile. "Perhaps I'm going about this wrong. Do you, or maybe some friend or relative, know anything about time travel?"

The tables erupt in laughter, even Jesse is laughing. His pretty, good-natured face is growing red and ugly with mirth. 

"What are you _on_ man?" one of the other boys cackles, and he pounds his fist on the table, making the silverware and plates clatter together in a sound that grates on Jack's sanity.

He pulls, from a back pocket, a worn piece of notebook paper that has been folded many times. He opens it, revealing Gabe's notes in black ink, faded a little bit over the years, but besides all the numbers, he can clearly still make out the name "Jesse McCree" circled many times, with a single line scratched through it. He flattens the paper on the table in front of Jesse, and grabs the boy by the shoulders, "If not time travel, then this. Does any of this stuff make any sense to you?"

"Enough!" Gabe roars, and Jack freezes, realizes he has been gripping the boy too hard, shaking him with each syllable. He feels like crying. "Stop it, you fucking fool! Get off of him! _Mierda!"_

Gabe grabs Jack by the arms and flings him to the floor. He swipes the page off the table and a wild look comes over his face as he reads. "What the fuck is this Jack? You told me you destroyed these!"

"Gabe, please, they were the only clues I had! I had to keep some. I threw the others away!"

"Get the _fuck_ out of here, Jack! Get out of my fucking face! I can't stand to even look at you!" He takes the keys from his pocket and throws them down onto Jack's stomach.

Jack fumbles with them and scrambles to pull himself up to his feet. He looks back at the boy, his eyes pleading with him. "Jesse, I know that you can help us! Or you know someone who can! Gabriel Reyes. He knows you. He-"

"Get the _fuck_ out of my sight, Jack, before I never fucking speak to you again. I will fire you. I will have you thrown in prison. Get the _fuck_ away from him!" 

Gabe is the maddest that Jack has ever seen him, not counting Other Gabe. And he could probably give Other Gabe a run for his money, too. His fury has even silenced the laughter of the teenagers, who are frozen with silent terror, their guns dropped. Jesse has grown nearly as pale as the paper Gabe waves in front of him. They are truly just children. Jack feels his face burn hot with shame. 

Jack flees to the truck, starts the thing, and just drives.

* * *

The emptiness of the land seems more unbearable in the dark, without Gabe in the seat beside him. The road winds up and down cliffs, through tunnels in the mountains, and beneath the dome of perfect, cloudless sky. Jack floors it, driving recklessly, aware he's too drunk for this, and the stars spinning around him make him so nauseous he wants to pull over and puke. So he stops at the first motel he passes, a place that looks half-run-down, with a vast, empty parking lot. The man at the front desk is reading posts on an online forum, his tablet propped in front of him. He has an opened bag of cheese puffs at hand, and he speaks to Jack with his mouth full of them. Jack is disgusted by him, disgusted by himself, too, though. He shuffles outside to find the door to his room. It faces a pool that looks a sickly green in the moonlight. A couple floats, their limbs tangled together, and Jack is disgusted by them, too.

He has never been in a motel this bad before. It is a non-smoking room, but there are cigarette burns in the blankets. The walls are patterned with old stains. There is a television between two still-life paintings of vases and flowers and fruits. The whole place reeks of mildew. The air is humid on his skin. Moisture drips down from the air vents, onto the carpet. Just being in here makes Jack feel gross.

He thinks he's going to vomit, so he runs to the toilet, but after several minutes of clinging to the cold porcelain, the nausea passes. He drinks deeply from the sink using his cupped hands, because he does not trust the cleanliness of the cracked glasses stacked beside the faucet. The water settles his stomach a bit, but his head is still throbbing and his thoughts still race. 

After everything, how could Jesse McCree be a dead end? Why had Gabe written that name down if it meant nothing? And why does Gabe not care more? How can he want Jack to give up, as if nothing ever happened? Doesn't he want answers, too? Jack feels certain that they haven't seen the last of these incidents. They will get worse and worse. And then he'll lose Gabe forever to that Other Gabe who hates him so much. 

And another part of him is deeply afraid that this night has started them on the path to that future. Has he made Gabe hate him so much. He hopes that he is being melodramatic, but he feels like things between them will never be the same. 

He tries to calm himself with some television, but the motel doesn't get enough channels, and the news and game shows make him anxious, while the nature documentary threatens to put him to sleep. The alcohol and adrenaline is wearing off, and he's becoming aware of how drained he feels. He wants the comfort of Gabe's solid, warm body against his own, but he also doesn't want to speak to Gabe at all. He's angry that Gabe still thinks he's some kind of idiot or liar. If the Other Gabe were even slightly considerate, Jack would ask him to write a letter to his younger self. He's seen both of their handwritings and knows it's the same. Still, Gabe would find some excuse for it, he is sure. 

Jack groans and texts Gabe the motel's address, which he finds on the bedside telephone. He spends several minutes writing and deleting other texts. He wants to tell Gabe how much of an asshole he is being, how he himself has done nothing wrong but love Gabe more than Gabe loves him. He wants to let Gabe know how hurt his feelings are, how much he hates Gabe, and how much he loves him with every bit of himself. 

Instead, he sends nothing but the address, and he falls asleep just as the baby penguins are hatching on TV. 

* * *

Jack wakes, early as always, and cannot remember where he is. The thick curtains let in nearly no light. At some point, the air conditioning cut off, and the room is sweltering. His entire body is veiled in sweat, and the damp blankets cling to him until he manages to twist free. His neck and shoulders ache, and his mouth tastes foul. His bag, containing his toothpaste and toothbrush, is still in the car. At that thought, the memories of the night before flood back into him.

He is ashamed of himself, just a little. He shouldn't have grabbed the kid like that, and he shouldn't have yelled. But he's angry, too. Angry that Gabe didn't come to him in the night, that he didn't respond to his text, that he yelled at him that way. Where has Gabe gone? If it were anyone else, Jack would be afraid for their safety, but Gabe is resourceful. He didn't get killed or kidnapped. No, he didn't come back last night because he didn't want to. 

Jack's worst fears are confirmed after a call to Ana.

"Have you heard from Gabe?" he asks.

"Not yet," she says, "But it's still early. He's not due to land for about half an hour."

"Land..." he repeats the word with a sigh. He's torn between rage and guilt and despair. 

"When will you be returning, Jack? Gabe said that you wanted to stay, but I don't know if it's wise of you to be out of reach until we know if we can trust the boy."

"The boy..." Does that mean that Gabe brought Jesse McCree back to Overwatch with him? He can't imagine him doing that, but, then again, he can't believe Gabe abandoned him in Arizona, either. "Y-you're right. I'll head to the airport now."


	7. Holiday

"Why don't you ever come home for the holidays?" Jack's mother nags him.

It is the 26th of December. They had celebrated yesterday with the Lindholms, as they always did, flying in early in the morning and spending the day with the family before flying back to Swiss HQ later that night. The invitation to stay had been extended, of course, but Jack thinks they were all eager to get away from the hordes of children, and there was the issue of where to put up Winston, since he was bigger than half of the rooms in the house. Plus, the Lindholms, as well as many of the international members of Overwatch, celebrate the day after Christmas as a holiday on its own. The Americans - Jack and Gabe and Jesse - always feel a little lost during these festivities. So the three of them, accompanied by Winston, are spending the rest of their time off work back at the headquarters, which feels vast and empty with the staff and other members all off until January. They've spent the day eating leftovers and watching Christmas movies on the television in the recreation room.

Jack has stepped out into the hall to answer his mother's phone call. Why doesn't he ever go back to Indiana for the holidays? He has visited for long weekends, but never for a day of any importance. He'd rather be with these people, he supposes. He's wearing the designer watch that Gabe got him, as well as a sweater from Angela, who is home with her family, but left gifts for everyone under the Christmas tree they decorated in the lobby. He glances back into the rec room, where Jesse and Winston are leaning over the coffee table playing a card game. Winston is losing, and he looks far from amused. Jack smiles at the scene, his heart tightening with fondness.

It wasn't always this way. 

For a long time after the incident on Route 66, there was a monster inside of Jack, wrapped around his heart. The thing was vicious and violent and insatiable, eating Jack's positive emotions and spitting them back out as horrible, nasty ones. Jack could barely breathe for the weight of the thing there inside of him. At first, he had thought he was angry about the fight with Gabe, but it took only a few days to recognize it for what it truly was. Jealousy. Because Jack had grown used to being the only one who could tolerate Gabe's volatile personality, but Gabe and Jesse banter like they are old friends, and the walls which Gabe keeps up that Jack worked so hard to scale over the years are simply nonexistent for Jesse. They were fond of each other in the blink of an eye, and Jack was blindsided by it. Not just blindsided. Hurt. Deeply, breathtakingly hurt by the whole situation - how Jesse was a dead end for his investigations, how Jesse made a place for himself at Gabe's side, and the horrible knowledge that Other Gabe in his alternate future must be equally fond of Jesse, while he loathes Jack. It took months, but Gabe was able to pry his fingers beneath the repulsive thing and peel it away, little by little. Jack has forgiven Jesse in the years since then, and he's not a child at all anymore. He's as tall as Jack and Gabe now, and just as big, more thick and fleshy than pure muscle, but still impressive considering that it was all without the aid of government experimentation. Jack was right about him; he has grown into a handsome man, although he hides it all behind a poorly groomed beard and the brim of a cowboy hat, which Jack can do nothing but shake his head over. 

Jack was also conflicted over Winston joining. After coming home from Arizona, he had burned the last of Other Gabe's notes. He was determined to never think about them, never research anything from them ever again. He was mostly successful in tucking away everything about Other Gabe into the lesser explored corners of his thoughts, but when Winston showed up, all he could think about was what Gabe had said on that first night those years ago... _the monkey_. A gorilla wasn't a monkey, of course, but Jack was certain that Winston was the one he had been speaking of. Still. Don't think about it. Let the past go.

It's been so many years since then, and Jesse and Winston are two of Jack's dearest friends. 

"You're cheating!" Winston growls, and Jack laughs at how Jesse flinches when those fangs, as long as a man's fingers, are bared at him in an animal snarl. 

"I am not!" the cowboy protests, holding up both hands as though to show there was nothing up his sleeves.

"Maybe we'll come home in time for New Year's," Jack says to his mother through the phone. We. Him and Gabe. Because he realizes that if the truth is enough to cost him his relationship with his aging parents, then he will be okay. He already has a family on backup.

* * *

That night, Jack plans to bring up the idea of a trip back to Indiana, but Gabe never comes to bed. 

At first, he doesn't think much of it. As Strike Commander, Gabe is sometimes called away to handle things without warning. The fact that it is their holiday off from work is meaningless, because international incidents don't wait until workdays to occur. He isn't even alarmed when he wakes up alone the next morning, because Gabe has worked through the night before. Jack decides that he will find Gabe, make him some coffee, and drag him back to bed. 

He searches all over the place, wandering the empty halls in his pajamas, barefoot. Headquarters feels less like home now, when there's no one inside of it but security guards at the doors. There is Gabe's office, a huge room of many windows, which glows alive from the morning sun; the room is devoid of any glimpses of his real personality, and it looks like it has been designed from marbled floor to vaulted ceiling to be shown in magazines. He didn't really expect Gabe to be in there, and he heads to the opposite wing of the building, where his own office is located. It's a more modest room, still grand, but he's allowed framed photographs of them on his desk. Sometimes Gabe goes there to do real work, but again, the room is empty, so Jack searches every conference room, the reception room, the briefing room, the basement laboratories where he finds Winston pecking away one-handed at his keyboard with a jar of peanut butter in the other. He tries the two dining halls, the kitchen, even Petras's office and then Ana's, and finally the rec room, where he sees that Jesse had passed out the night before and still lies snoring while infomercials play muted on the television. 

A little frustrated, Jack goes to the coffee pot and starts to brew. There are other coffee machines in the building, but he kind of hopes it will wake Jesse up. Once the room fills with the aroma of the beans, Jesse does wake, pawing sleep from his eyes. 

"Makin' enough for me?" he mumbles.

"Of course," Jack says, "You should go to your room. That couch will kill your back."

"Okay, _Dad_ ," Jesse groans, and Jack smiles to himself, embarrassed that he was ever jealous of Jesse. Because, really - how could Gabe _not_ like him?

"Have you seen Gabriel?" Jack asks.

"He ain't still asleep?"

Jack only then begins to feel uneasy, because if one of them doesn't know where Gabe is, then the other one certainly does. Between the two of them, the man's whereabouts are always known. 

"Maybe ask Gérard?" Jesse suggests. Jack is confused. Gérard Lacroix is, aside from the two of them, Gabe's best friend. He has been an important Overwatch agent for a couple of years now, but he lives and works generally out of their smaller Paris base. Jesse elaborates, "I heard Boss on the phone with him last night. That's the last time I saw him."

Jack ponders over this as he pours them both cups of fresh coffee. Jesse takes his and wanders to his room with a salute. Jack flops down on the couch and texts Gabe.

LMK where you are

Missed you last night

Jack isn't really worried yet, but there is an unsettled fluttering in his stomach. Maybe Gabe went to go pick up breakfast, or maybe he got called away on business to one of their Watchpoints. He sips at his coffee and stares at the blender they're demonstrating on the infomercial. It is the last normal moment that Jack will enjoy for some time. 

* * *

Jack decides to give Gabe a chance to respond before he calls Gérard. In the meantime, he distracts himself by checking with Athena to see if she knows his whereabouts, but all that she can offer him is the security surveillance, which shows Gabe leaving after the phone call with Gérard. He took no bag, so wherever he was going, he didn't feel the need to pack a change of clothes. Jack watches it on loop, hoping for clues, but there are none. It's only been one night, he tells himself. Not even twenty-four hours. But if Gabe is missing, truly missing, shouldn't he call the police? Aren't the first few hours the most vital in the investigation of a missing person? 

"Do not call the police, Jack," Ana says sharply, "The U.N. is already looking for any excuse to disband us. They'll make us all look like fools if our Strike Commander has disappeared."

"You're right," Jack sighs, "I just wish he would answer a text or a call. Anything."

He had taken his nervous energy down to the gym, where he had been jogging on a treadmill when it occurred to him to call Ana Amari. Like the others, she is gone for the holidays, spending her break in Canada, with her daughter, Fareeha, and her husband, Sam. He didn't expect her to know where Gabe is, but her logic has always served to ease his anxieties. He is sitting down on a bench, wiping sweat from his neck and face with a towel, while her voice comes through on the speaker of his cell phone. It is nearly ten o'clock at night, although he thinks it is only around eleven in the morning or maybe noon for Ana. 

"What are you afraid of, Jack?" she asks, "Do you truly believe someone could have kidnapped him? Can you think of anyone so dangerous?"

She has a point, of course. Jack has yet to encounter anyone who could take Gabe down, except perhaps Winston. 

"Give it another day. If no one has heard from him by then, we will investigate. We can track his cellphone, check every security camera in the city, send out agents to locate him. He will be found, Jack."

"Okay."

"Do you want me to come back?"

"No!" Jack says, "No! Please. Stay with Fareeha. Give her my love."

Ana sighs heavily on the other side of the line. "I will," she promises him, "But if you don't hear from him by this time tomorrow, then let me know."

They change the subject, finishing the conversation on more pleasant notes. Jack asks Ana how Fareeha is doing, and Ana fills him in on how she is still dreaming of joining Overwatch. She doesn't say so, but Jack knows she is against this and wants to keep her daughter out of the organization. Jack doesn't know why; he believes that it's a job any mother should be proud of, and Fareeha has grown up among the Overwatch agents. But he says nothing, just listens, and then she asks him about Jesse - whom Jack knows she loves like a son. Jack laughs and tells her how he has been doing nothing but sleeping and eating Christmas cookies for the past two days, which she vows she will make him regret with extra practice in the shooting range as soon as she gets back. They say their goodbyes, and Jack feels a lot better. 

He begins to pack up his gym gear, but he has a sudden urge that he can't shake. On his phone, he scrolls through his contacts and finds Gérard's number. He knows it is late, but he can't put this off until the morning. He should have done this as soon as Jesse suggested it.

" _Allo."_

Jack cups his hand around the phone and smiles. "Hello, Mrs. Lacroix. It's Jack Morrison."

"Please, Jack, call me Amélie. How are you?" The French accent makes her words thick and sweet, like honey. Jack has only met her a handful of times, but she is young and beautiful and adores her husband. It is hard not to like her. Just her voice gives him hope. 

"I'm fine, thanks for asking. Listen, Amélie, I was actually wondering if you or Gérard had heard from Gabriel?"

She laughs. "Gabriel?" The way that she pronounces the name is closer to the real way, the Spanish way, than the way that Jack and everyone else pronounces it. It sounds lovely. " _Bien sûr!_ Of course! He is here."

" _What?_ " Jack gasps, the smile plummeting from his face. 

"He is here! In Paris. He arrived here last night."

Jack cannot find words. He's so furious that no thought will complete. Gabe left without a word. Gabe has been ignoring his calls and texts. He should be relieved that Gabe is safe and not missing at all, but the relief he feels is watery and trickles away from him, while his head and heart throb with the ache of his anger. "Can I speak to him?" he manages to squeak out.

"Sorry, Jack," she says, "They're out at a casino right now."

"Okay," Jack mutters, although it is not okay, not at all, "Just. Please. Have him call me as soon as he gets back? No matter the time?" 

"Is something the matter?" 

"No," he lies. And, because he cannot bare to fake conversation, he comes up with an excuse that he must hang up. They say their goodbyes, and Amélie begs him to come with Gabe next time, and the invitation makes him so sick that he just leaves all of his belongings in the gym and flees back to his room to take a scalding hot shower. He is glad that he called. He _is_ relieved, he tells himself. More than anything, he wants Gabe to be safe. It's only been a day. It's not like Gabe has been ignoring him for a long time. But still, he turns the water to icy cold, and he stands there pounding the tiles with a fist, and he screams and screams and screams. 

* * *

Gabe doesn't call. 

* * *

Please talk to me

If youre mad about something just let me know

We can work this out. I love you

Damn it Gabriel you can't just ghost me weve been together almost two decades

Dont you care how much youre hurting me

* * *

Jack spent most of the night restless, the glow of his phone's screen lighting up his face in bed as he typed and deleted text message after text message. He felt words in English were failing him. There was no way to express properly how much his heart ached, how desperately he wanted just a single response or call back. Perhaps Spanish had words more expressive and appropriate, but he wouldn't know. The only Spanish that Gabe had taught him in all these years was the filthy stuff. At some point, close to dawn, his emotional exhaustion overcame him. His phone dropped from his hand, and his eyes shut. 

It is just after nine o'clock in the morning, and he has not stirred, which is highly unusual for him. He has always been an early riser, up hours before Gabe on their days off, but his heart and mind are so weary, and he only dozed off a handful of hours ago. He remains tucked in the blankets, even as the door to his room swings open without a sound. 

There is a ghostly figure lingering in the hallway, watching Jack sleep.

Gabriel Reyes wonders why he has come to Jack's room. Why not his own room, he asks himself. Or even better - why not stay in Paris with Gérard? Why, when there is a whole entire world, has he chosen to return here? Has he planned to talk? To kill Jack in his sleep, perhaps? 

Unable to make up his mind, Gabe hovers and stares. The curtains are drawn around the room's tall windows, keeping out the watery grey light of a rainy morning, but there is just enough to see by. Jack is curled on his side with his back to the door. His blond hair is splayed across the pillow, framing his head like a halo. Gabe bares his teeth in a snarl and prowls, catlike, across the room to the bed. 

It would be easy to kill him, he thinks. Snap his neck or smother him with a pillow. It would be so effortless, but it would also mean nothing to him. 

"Jack?" His hoarse whisper sounds like a shout to him in the silent room, because he's still hungover from the many drinks he had at the casino, and the Bloody Mary he downed on the airplane has done little to clear his head. 

The man does not wake. He grunts quietly and rolls onto his back. Gabe gives a snort of cheerless laughter. Jack Morrison is a grown ass man, middle-aged now, and here he is wearing Buffalo check Christmas pajamas like his damn mother was still dressing him. Jack is such a big kid at heart. He always has been. And this strangely makes Gabriel's cold heart feel a thrum of hot sorrow, because he knows that Jack won't always be this way. As he gets older, life will turn him bitter and introspective. No more Christmas pajamas. No more Christmases, either. Even now, Gabe imagines there must already be white hairs among all that gold. 

Gabe slinks like a shadow across the room, to Jack's desk by the windows. He tugs the curtains open just a little, to let in some more dreary light. He shuffles through the desk drawers, finding a sheet of official Overwatch stationery, emblazoned with the logo at the top center. He takes a ball point pen from the cup at the desk's corner and sits down to write. The hiss of the pen gliding across the smooth paper and the patter of rain against the glass are the only sounds in the room. 

"Wow, _fuck you_!"

Gabe looks up from his notes. Jack is swinging his legs out of bed, throwing the blankets to the floor.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Gabriel? Is this a joke to you? You ignore me for three days and then just waltz back in here to fill out paperwork like nothing happened?"

"It was one day, Jack. You can't count today or the day before yesterday," Gabe mutters to himself. He goes back to scribbling, but Jack has crossed the room now, and he snatches the pen from Gabe's fingers, flinging it at the floor. 

"Don't argue semantics with me! You disappeared! I called you a dozen times! Don't you give a damn about how I felt?"

Gabe reaches for another pen from the cup and resumes writing. Jack sweeps his hand across the desk, knocking the cup to the floor and scattering pens and pencils across the room. "Yell at me later, Jack," Gabe sighs, "Go back to sleep."

"Are you kidding me? That's all you have to say!"

Gabe slams a palm down on the desk and rises to his feet. "Gérard is dead, Jack."

The news silences Jack in an instant. His face goes slack from the shock, and all he can say is, " _What?"_

Gabe sighs. "In my time. In my future. Gérard is dead. He was killed... in a _horrific_ way."

"Oh."

It feels strange, Jack thinks. To be so angry, and so hurt, and to have it drained away in an instant, by a single revelation. Feeling foolish, he bends down to begin picking the pens up off the floor. 

"I was on the phone with him, when... well, when I got here. You know what I mean." Jack nods and sets the cup back on the corner of his desk. They stare at each other. Gabe continues, "He was asking me about Christmas, telling me about his plans for New Year's Eve. As though we spoke every day. As though it hadn't been a dozen years since I was a pallbearer at his funeral. I had to go see him. It was beautiful, to spend time with him again. I've missed him like crazy."

"Gabe, it's been so long... what, like fifteen years? I thought it was over. I thought you would stay where you belong. Or when you belong, you know?"

Gabe turns to the window, resting a hand against the cool glass. The pale light casts his shadow long and thin to the other end of the room. "Time hasn't moved the same between my world and yours. These moments, where I'm here, they're occurring in the blink of an eye for me. I wake up in my own world just a second after I disappeared from there. And while years go by for you, it has only been a few weeks for me."

Jack moves around the desk and leans against the window beside Gabe. "What are you writing? I saw that note that you wrote last time, you know. Why do you want me dead?"

Gabe can't answer. How can he summarize a lifetime of jealousy and bickering and disagreements in one conversation? He can't tell Jack that they've faked their deaths to escape each other. He can't tell Jack that they devote their lives to opposite causes. And he is a bad man. He knows this. He can't express that to Jack, either. "Where I'm from... _When_ I am from, you are the Strike Commander. At least you were, before Overwatch was disbanded."

Jack is surprised. Strike Commander? Him? He was better at paperwork and organization, that was for certain, and he had far better social skills. But Gabe was a natural-born leader. People _wanted_ to follow Gabe. They _wanted_ to make him like them, to make him proud. And Overwatch? Disbanded? "So in your timeline, they shut us down after the Omnic Crisis ended?" Jack asks.

Gabe shakes his head. "No. After the Omnic Crisis, we operated as a peace organization for a long time. We became old men working here."

"Then why was Overwatch disbanded?"

"Because of _us,_ Jack. You and I. It was directly our faults. You couldn't overlook your morals in order to serve the greater good. Things were too black and white for you. You've always been such a damn Boy Scout. But are great, effective leaders Boy Scouts? No. And you know me. I'm emotional. Temperamental. Sometimes I jumped into things without thinking, and you were so _fucking_ hard on me for it. You never considered that we were on the same side, fighting for the same cause. Overwatch brought us together. Overwatch made us best friends. But when the fighting was over, it was Overwatch that tore us down, and so we tore down Overwatch in return."

"But things are different now!" Jack protests, "You and I... We're together! We're fine!"

"There's still time," Gabe mutters. 

"No!" Jack snaps, and his brows knit with anger, "You're wrong. You coming here that first time changed things. We've had years to learn how to balance each other."

Gabe laughs. He's so good at that terrible laugh. It frightens Jack. "That's lovely to hear, Jack, but it's bullshit. I have changed things; I can see that. Don't you think it pisses me the fuck off to see how fucking you somehow made me the Strike Commander? But not everything can be solved with love. This isn't a movie. This is reality. Our future is still fucked, no matter what we do in bed together."

Jack grabs Gabe by the arm and spins him around to face him. "You have the power to help me fix things in my timeline!"

Gabe takes the paper off the desk and presses it into Jack's hand. "There is one thing I would like you to fix," he said, pointing at the page, "Save Gérard and Amélie. I've written down some things to do, and other things to avoid doing. If you follow these instructions, I think that Gérard could live. And, since you care, I think it will be beneficial to Overwatch if you do some of these things as well."

Jack skims the words, then gazes back at Gabe. Now that Gabe isn't angry, the differences between this Gabe and his real Gabe are more obvious. Physically, yes, it is the same body, but the cocky, playful spirit that burns alive in his Gabe is missing completely from the Other Gabe. There aren't even embers of that spark remaining in his dark eyes. No prank wars with Jesse. No sarcasm. No jokingly giving Winston a framed King Kong poster for Christmas. And maybe back in his time, the other Jack has similarly fizzled out. Memories and regrets have sucked up all the hope and life from the both of them, and maybe that's where their friendship has gone, too. Can you really love someone who has been so drained of themselves? No, Jack thinks. 

"I will save Gérard and Amélie. For you. I promise," Jack says. 

He is swallowing back tears. His free hand, the one not clinging to the paper, slides around into Gabe's hair. Jack draws him in close. His lips part, and he takes Gabe's into his own. Gabe stiffens in his grip and tries to jerk away, but Jack just clings to him tighter. He kisses Gabe fiercely, seeking the familiar heat of that mouth with sweeps of his tongue, and Gabe's body goes limp, unwilling or unable to resist. 

For many heartbeats, time is nonexistent. There is no this Jack or that Jack, no real Gabriel or other Gabriel. It is just Jack and Gabe. Time slides off of them like water off the back of a mallard. Neither young nor old, neither now nor then. Just a fire, burning between two mouths, and while Gabe does not kiss Jack back, his lips welcome every pull and push of flesh and tongue. 

Then time returns, and Jack lets go. Gabe glowers at him, then takes a step backwards, away from him. And then another. And another.

"Don't go," Jack says.

"I'm hungover. I'm exhausted. And you just fucking kissed me. I don't particularly want to sit around in bed with you all morning," Gabe growls.

"Please. Don't run off on your own. You... _this_ you... You always get so scared, when you come to and don't know what has happened."

Gabe's teeth are bared in a snarl. " _This_ is the wrong timeline. My real life, my family, everything that _I_ know is the way things are meant to be."

"Of course," Jack says. He doesn't agree, but he knows that with Gabe, one must pick his battles. "But in exchange for Gérard and Amélie, since I will save them for you, you can do this one small thing for me, right? Just don't go off again. You're only hurting yourself."

Gabe's shoulders are heaving with the effort of restraining his temper. "You're too good of a person, Jack. You won't let them die, now that you have the information to save them."

It's true. If these steps will save their friends, Jack will follow them. He can't think of a good argument against that.

But Gabe sits down on the edge of the bed, letting his shoulders drop. 

Jack crosses the room and sits down beside him. "One more thing - "

"No."

"When you go back," Jack continues, ignoring him, "Will you pass along a message to my older self?"

Gabe snorts. "You'll shoot me if I try. Besides, we're old men now. Nothing that you say will change anything."

Again, Jack ignores him and goes on, "Tell him that I'm sorry. I'm sorry he never got to see how good of a leader that you are. I'm sorry he's never eaten your delicious pancakes, or gone to your favorite place for tacos, or spoken to your sweet mother on the phone. I'm sorry he'll never hear the way you growl swear words in Spanish when you're close to cumming. And I'm sorry he never stopped hiding himself from the world, because the only reason I ever came out of the closet to anyone was because of you. He should have gotten that relief, too. And he should have experienced all of those wonderful things and more. But he didn't. So tell him that I'm sorry."

"I would never repeat a single fucking word of that."

Jack shrugs. He crawls over to his side of the bed and lays down, patting the mattress beside him. "You can sleep here. I won't touch you. I swear."

"I'd rather go to my own room," Gabe says, but he makes no effort to get up and leave. 

For a long moment they are silent, listening to the rain. Gabe isn't sure what to do. He hates being in this body, hates not being able to do anything to get back home. But he eventually stretches out with his back to Jack. It is surprisingly not weird. They have slept together in the trenches of battlefields. They have dozed side-by-side in their seats on ships and cars and airplanes. They have shared hotel rooms more times than he can count, some of which were so small it was practically sharing a bed anyway. And that's all in his own timeline, the one he considers the real one. They truly had once been best friends. Even now, so full of hate that it has transformed him into something hardly human, Gabriel Reyes takes comfort in the memories of back then, and they help him fall into an uneasy slumber, while Jack dreams of very similar memories beside him.


	8. Gabe

Gabriel Reyes wakes up from a dreamless sleep with one of the worst hangovers of his life, a pounding in his skull so vicious he can barely see, can barely think. He lies sprawled on his back in bed, squeezing his eyes closed and trying to escape back into unconsciousness, but the ache is more than he can bare. It is enough to make him nauseous. Groaning, he sits up and finds himself in unfamiliar surroundings. A pristine white room with deep blue carpet, antique rosewood furniture, tall windows with a dreary view of a rain-drenched city and, in the distance, the Swiss Alps. Swiss Alps? How did he - Realization dawns on him, the memories of the past two days flooding back. The phone call from Gérard, the nights in Paris, the casino, the gambling, the liquor... and the conversation with Jack, and the kiss from Jack, and falling asleep to the sound of Jack breathing beside him. 

He flings himself out of the bed and stumbles to the bathroom, certain he is going to vomit, but after heaving up nothing until there are tears in his eyes, he grips the cool porcelain of the sink and leans down to drink deeply from the faucet. The water helps a little bit, so he decides that he will go to the kitchen, grab a couple of bottles of water, and hide in his own room until he returns to his own time. Maybe he'll watch some television. It's crazy, he thinks, how many decades it has been since he just sat around and watched TV.

The walk downstairs to the kitchen feels like a dream. Significant parts of this timeline are different, but the little things are all so familiar; it's like he's looking at photographs of his own past. The carpets down the corridors are the same, the paint on the wall, even the smell - fresh and chemical, of bleach and citrus-scented cleaning supplies. He grips the same railing as he takes the flight of stairs and stares up at the same chandelier in the landing. He has few memories of the actual explosion that destroyed headquarters. It had been just a deafening sound, a shaking of the earth, and a blistering heat. What he can recall better is the aftermath. The angry dark smoke stains that crawled up the walls, the furniture and decorations all melted into a senseless black sludge, the gaping holes that opened onto the lawn, charred and scattered with shrapnel. There had been sparking electrical wires dangling like vines from the ceilings, and burst pipes spitting toxic, muddy water into the halls. He had come back some days later to take in the devastation. At the time, he had been numb to it all. Being here again, though, makes him relive it with unspeakable sadness. After all, for the better part of his adult life, the Swiss HQ had been his home. In his own time, it is easy to focus on the bad, but there had been so much good here, too - making guacamole for Jack's Super Bowl parties, getting high with Jesse on the roof those summer nights, toilet papering Petras's office on the man's 40th birthday. Each of these things comes back to him with every step he takes. 

There had been a seething hatred within him that was directed towards Overwatch and Jack Morrison himself. He had carried that, been consumed by it, for a long time now. That part of him feels numb now as he wanders these familiar halls. 

To Gabe's dismay, he finds the kitchen bustling with activity. It is almost one o'clock in the afternoon, and many of the agents and staff are making or eating their lunches. Seeing so many familiar faces leaves Gabe struck dumb. The blond young man deftly slicing fruit at the counter and tossing them into a bowl works with Winston and Athena in the lab downstairs, although much of the time he lives at Watchpoint Gibraltar. He used to think it was funny, when someone left their computer or laptop unattended, to make the screen display upside down or change the direction of the mouse - in this timeline, he probably still does those things, Gabe thinks. The last time Gabe saw him, his chest had been crushed in by an I-beam when HQ had been destroyed. He isn't sure if the man lived or died. Likely he is dead, since Talon has not sought him out to Gabe's knowledge. Two ship pilots are standing in front of the sink, chatting about their plans for New Year's Eve. The one of them whose back is to the room as she rinses a plate under the faucet used to be on his own Blackwatch team. There is no Blackwatch in this timeline, he knows, so he wonders what ship she flies now. He feels his heart tightening in his chest when he remembers that she is dead where he comes from. She was a damn good pilot. _Is_ a damn good pilot, he reminds himself. She's standing right there. A baby-faced woman is digging through the walk-in freezer, wearing shorts that are of an entirely inappropriate length, but they are all still on vacation, Gabe remembers. Isn't she freezing, though? She's humming a song from a kid's animated musical. Right now, she works as an assistant to Angela, if the timeline hasn't changed this, as well. But Gabe knows that if Moira ends up joining Overwatch in this world, this woman will get pulled in to Moira's work. A few years after the end of Overwatch, she will wind up working for Talon. He has been keeping an eye on her since the recall, wondering if she will become a double agent. Yet here she is, as much at home in this kitchen as anyone else. If only Gabe could tell them all that she is a traitor, just like himself. And there, seated on a stool at the center of it all, is Jesse McCree, who is busy devouring a BLT sandwich. 

"You look like shit, Boss," Jesse teases him, and of course the others all look up. Gabe has avoided looking into a mirror all morning, because seeing his younger self freaks him out, but if he had looked, he would have seen circles around his eyes as dark as bruises, unwashed hair, and a face desperately in need for a shave. Gabe clenches his teeth, his fingers tightening into fists. The eyes on him are making his skin crawl. Act casual, he tells himself, but Jesse continues, "Looks like you got what was comin' for ya, freakin' us all out like you did just to go play some Blackjack."

Gabe nearly lunges, but Jack intercepts, sweeping from nowhere into Gabe's line of sight. "Gabe," he says, his voice infuriatingly tender, "I was about to bring this up to you." He's holding a plate of buttered toast and a huge, steaming mug of tea that smells faintly of lemon. Gabe sees Jack's eyes moving across his face. He's trying to look for a sign - is this his Gabe, or not? Gabe wants him to choke on the damned toast. He snatches the mug and the plate and storms away. It's impossible to pretend to be friends with these people. He already knows the countless ways that they will betray him, and just looking at their stupid familiar faces makes him want to blow the entire building up a second time. 

* * *

The police drama that Gabe turns on cannot hold his attention. As he lies in his own bed, nibbling at the toast, his mind wanders. How can he go back and face Widowmaker? How can he pretend that his two nights in Paris never happened - that he never ate dinner she had prepared with her own two hands, that he hadn't slept in the guest room that she was hoping to turn into a nursery one day, that he hadn't got drunk and wept like a fucking idiot in Gérard's arms inside the casino bathroom, right in front of the urinals. He was ashamed, but at least Gérard had been drunk too, and in his own timeline, none of this ever happened. As soon as he got back home, he could forget about it.

Except that isn't much consolation, because in his timeline, Gérard is dead. 

He winces.

In many ways, Gérard's death was the beginning of the end for Overwatch. Gabe's friendship with Jack had been ruined, Ana was faking her own death, and Gérard was his last remaining connection to his human emotions. At least, he had thought so. These wounds are freshly opened all over again. To Gabe, it's like Gérard has just died a second time. Those feelings have been within him all along, he has just become quite good at burying them away and ignoring them.

When the toast is gone, he bites this body's fingernails into stubs. His teeth pick away until his cuticles bleed and his nail beds ache. It feels good, in a spiteful way, to ruin something about this body. 

This has to end. He is becoming unraveled. His emotions are becoming too complicated, the more involved he gets in this version of the past. But the only solution that he can see is to stop using his shadow step ability entirely. Moira, with all her experiments and research, is unable to come up with a cure. He could get stuck here next time. He could be stuck here now. If he goes back, this will be the final time. He can't bare to be loved by Jack. He can't bare to interact with people he saw die. The sight of so many familiar faces, faces he was once genuinely fond of, is draining him of his sanity. After years of feeling **nothing** \- no pain, no pleasure, no grief or joy - these emotions resurfacing are a sensory overload and a crippling weakness.

On that note, there is something he craves, a temptation that makes him so weak he feels like a child, and the more he sits there fighting the urge, the more emotional and weak he grows. Finally, he can take it no longer. He calls his mother.

His mother died from Alzheimer's shortly after his own "death." He never got to say goodbye to her, and if he had tried, she would not have even recognized him. Her mind was so gone at that point that she likely didn't even know she had a son she was mourning. Maybe the Alzheimer's brought her some comfort in those final months, in a strange and sad way. In this now, she is still alive, and the desire to hear her voice one last time is stronger than any other desire he has ever known. 

She answers the phone first in English. She speaks English _very slowly_ as though she is trying to waste the listener's time on purpose, but her Spanish is fast as gunfire, and as soon as she realizes that it is her son on the phone, she's yelling his ear off about how the family is still in town for the holidays, still driving her crazy, and Tía Berta is a vegetarian now and won't eat anything that she cooks, and her favorite dog - a perpetually trembling chihuahua - has cataracts now and can barely see, and she's gained so much weight that she had to stitch a new button on her pants, and the neighbors won't stop playing loud music all through the night, and a million other things, all before he can utter so much as a single word. He smiles the whole time, his heart spilling over with feeling that he no longer thought he was capable of. 

He can picture her so perfectly in his mind's eye. She's a tiny woman, barely five feet. He bets that she is standing at the kitchen table, folding up tamales with her bare hands, holding the phone up to her ear with a shoulder. His father had the whole kitchen built especially with her diminutive size in mind, and Gabe always felt like a giant in that room, even when he was a boy. Despite her age and her tiny frame, she is more fierce than feeble. There will be a thin chain of gold around her neck, and from it hanging a crucifix and her wedding band, which she can no longer wear due to the swelling of her arthritic joints. Behind her, on the counter, are a collection of candles decorated with Saints' faces. She burns them when she prays, and their scent fills the little house, along with the aroma of cumin and cilantro and Fabuloso. The house will be packed tight with the family in town for the holidays. He thinks he can even hear their chatter faintly in the background as she talks. 

He wants to be there, but he can't go. He doesn't think that he can pretend to be this younger version of himself in front of his mother. His heart is too damaged to handle the love. Which is why, he thinks, he can't bare to be around Jack now either. The way that Jack looks at him... Gabe wishes he could feel anything more than anger in return.

His thoughts are interrupted by a pause in the endless stream of Spanish. 

"¿ _Qué dijo_?" he asks. 

She repeats herself, in English, like he's an idiot for missing it the first time, "How is Jack?"

Jack. The question catches him off guard, because in his timeline, his mother certainly didn't know Jack well enough to ever inquire about his well-being. The revelation is unsettling. "Do you like Jack, Ma?"

"Why? Did something happen?"

"No. I was just curious."

"You know I love Jack," she says. Love. Gabe winces. "He is a good man. A good match for you. You were an angry boy. I was so afraid you'd grow old and alone like my cousin Guillermo. Do you remember him? He used to be so good at sports, and now all he does is drink. I wish you would settle down close to home, you and Jack. I wish you two would go ahead and get married. You aren't getting any younger! And neither am I! I want grandchildren one day, _Mijo._ I know you can't have children the regular way, but you can always adopt!"

Gabe can't even craft a response to this unnerving response, so he is relieved that she changes the subject on her own, going off about how some distant cousin is pregnant now. Gabe nods and listens, but he is distracted by the things she has told him. The thought of having a family with Jack is... well, he finds it absolutely repulsive. 

They did have a family, though, he thinks. Overwatch. And they fucked that family up irreparably. 

_A good match for you_ , she had said. The words rattle in his skull, making his head ache all over again. He wants to grab her through the phone and shake her. _We aren't a good match,_ he wants to scream, _And Jack isn't a good man_.

_Neither_ \- he thinks - _am I._


	9. Storm

Jack is brushing his teeth when he catches movement in the mirror, a shifting of shadows. He freezes, froth at his lips, and stares hard at the reflection. Over his shoulder, everything is dark and quiet in the bedroom behind him. After a moment, he bows his head to spit out the toothpaste and gulps down some water right from the faucet. When he straightens back up, a figure has moved into the bathroom light. He jumps around with a gasp, only to find himself face-to-face with Gabe. 

He is tempted to laugh at his own skittishness, but Gabe's face is haggard, his eyes vacant and dim. "My poor Gabriel," Jack croons, and he cups the other man's cheeks in his hands. He studies the scars across that face, the deep crows feet at his temples, the furrow of those bushy brows and the mouth carved into a severe frown. It's all so familiar, and yet he cannot be sure. Is this his Gabe? It must be, for he does not pull away from the warmth of Jack's touch. "Are you okay?"

"I feel like shit," Gabe says. His expression softens, maybe a hint of mirth in those eyes, and Jack heaves a sigh of relief. It's his Gabe after all.

Gabe reveals something that he has been hiding behind his back. It is a sheet of yellow paper, torn from a legal pad. Jack takes it from him, skimming it over. In Gabe's scrawl is written a list of Overwatch agents. A note at the head of the page informs him that these are men and women who, in the other timeline, will come to betray them, and Gabe - the _Other_ Gabe - has implored Jack to do all that he can to remove them from the organization. Jack is touched that Other Gabe has left this for them, that Other Gabe has chosen to do the right thing, but his mood quickly switches to horror. These are people who Jack plays fantasy football with, people whose Starbucks orders he knows by heart, people whose spouses and children he has met, people he has trusted with his life. He sees names of advisers and handlers, of pilots, of scientists who work at their Ecopoints and in their weapons development facilities, of engineers who work alongside Torbjorn, of medics who work alongside Angela. 

"This is a nightmare..." Jack mutters. He expects Gabe to snap at him for believing this garbage, but the other man is silent. Jack peers up at him over the paper, but Gabe still looks dour and dreadful. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asks. 

Gabe shakes his head.

He still hasn't washed or shaved since he got back from Paris, and while he's never been as strict about hygiene and grooming as Jack himself is, it's unusual for him to not at least want to rinse off after the plane ride. Jack guides him backwards until his calves hit the toilet, and he sits down on the lid. Jack leans over him and begins twisting the knobs to start the bath water. Gabe gets up, as though to leave, but Jack pushes him back down. "You look exhausted, Gabe," Jack says, "Please, let me take care of you."

Gabe is silent, his expression doleful, as Jack forces the stopper in the drain and lets the tub fill with steaming water. Jack empties half of a bottle of his own body wash beneath the faucet, birthing heaps of bubbles that overflow the lip of the tub. This is a first for them - both of them are the type to prefer showers - which is why, Jack assumes, Gabe looks so uncomfortable as he begins to undress him. He tugs the shirt off over his head and removes each sock, one at a time. When he reaches for the waistband of Gabe's jeans, there is a moment where the other man hesitates and refuses to stand. "I'll stop if you want me to," Jack offers him, and Gabe looks like he can't think of a response. Does he want Jack to stop? Does he want Jack to continue? Finally he stands, and he eases the jeans off by himself.

When he slides under the surface of the water, it throws a great wave over the edge of the tub, splashing across the bath mat and the tiled floor. The water is hot enough to be almost uncomfortable, but he gives a low moan of appreciation and closes his eyes, sinking in up to his chin. Jack turns off the water and gathers a handful of bubbles in his cupped hands. He drops them onto Gabe's head, and his fingers begin to knead at Gabe's scalp, the bubbles working up into a lather as Jack scrubs through his hair. The scowl on Gabe's face has melted away, and he leans in to Jack's hands, his lips curling up at the corners ever so slightly. 

"Relax," Jack urges him, and his fingers glide across the familiar expanse of Gabe's body, slipping into the ridges of his rib cage, over the rise of breast and clavicle, into the dip of his navel. Aside from his scrubbing and the quiet sloshing of water, the room is quiet, and they can hear the patter of rainfall against the windows of the adjoining bedroom. It is not cold enough to snow, but the drops are half-frozen and strike the glass panes heavily.

Gabe is acting unusual, and the silence between them puts Jack on edge. He decides to talk, just to fill the room with the sound of his own voice. "I thought I was going to lose you this time," he says. He knows that Gabe doesn't want to talk about it, but he's hoping that by doing so, it'll spark a reaction out of Gabe. Even anger would be better than this strange melancholy. "He scared me at first. The other you, I mean. Did I ever tell you that?"

He pauses, hoping Gabe will answer, but all Gabe does is open his eyes. He won't even meet Jack's gaze, though. Instead, he looks down beneath the water's surface, watching the contrast of Jack's white hands as they move against his dark belly. Jack doesn't like how quiet he is. Why hasn't he snapped at Jack to drop it? Why hasn't he, at the very least, scoffed?

Doggedly, he continues, "He was like a monster. Nothing but anger and aggression. He threatened to kill me, you know? He hated me so much. I would have been safer on the battlefield, facing a whole army of Omnics, than I probably was around him. But he wasn't so scary this time. I realized that he's still you. He's still stubborn as hell and has the worst temper. Just whatever happened... it left him really poisoned. That's the only way I can make sense of it. It's still you, but all the life in you has become something black and twisted. I wish I could help him, Gabe. I wish he'd let me know what happened so that I could try to make it right. Because I can tell that I could still love him. Whatever happened between us in that future, I'm not afraid of it anymore. I've spent half of my life worrying about you coming to hate me, but now I know better. I'll love you any time, any age."

Gabe surges forward like some breaching sea monster, flinging bathwater everywhere. He locks his dripping arms behind Jack's neck and pulls. Jack's feet slip across the wet tiles, and he goes into the water with a great splash that sends a tsunami over the tub's edge. He gets a mouthful of suds and comes up choking and spluttering. Gabe looks ticked off, but there's something playful behind that scowl, and Jack takes his face into his hands and kisses him fiercely.

They hear the rumble of approaching thunder. 

It takes several sweeps of Jack's mouth before Gabe's scowl softens, and then his lips are opening for Jack, and it is hot and wet and salacious. Gabe rolls them onto their sides, their bodies becoming tightly packed together in the embrace of slippery porcelain, each of them half submerged in the warm water and half shivering in the cold bathroom air. As their tongues pull and push, Gabe's hands are peeling away Jack's drenched clothing, and Jack helps him anxiously, kicking free of the clinging fabric like his life depends on it. And when he is as nude as Gabe is, Gabe envelopes him in arms and legs, and their mouths are gathering together so violently that neither of them can really catch their breaths. 

A match has been struck, and now the moment cannot be stopped; together they burn, burn, burn... Every sweep of tongue, every bite, every yank and moan and grasp, it is as torrid and destructive and unstoppable as a flame. 

They rise together from the water, their mouths never parting. Jack slips against the tub's bottom, but Gabe holds him tight, and they devour each other as the water rolls down their muscled bodies. They step out, clinging to each other for balance, and then take another step back towards the door, when Jack nearly falls again, the tiles wet and slick beneath his feet. Gabe catches him, but this time he lets himself be pulled down, too. They crash together; it knocks the breath out of Jack, and Gabe is kissing the breath back into him just as fast. But the kisses dissolve rapidly. Jack parts his legs, drawing Gabe in closer. They grapple with each other, hands sliding across slippery skin. Jack is hard now, thinking how it has been days and days, and when Gabe's thighs and gut and fingers brush his throbbing shaft it's like stabs of agony through his nerves. His back is arching off the floor, his body rising into the touches, aching for more. "Please," he whimpers. Please do it. Please get it over with. Please touch me before I die. Please never leave me like that again.

With that syllable uttered, Gabe is on him like an animal. At once, it is a pleasure so exquisite that Jack feels he might levitate off the floor if not for Gabe's weight driving down onto him, into him. One of Gabe's hands wraps around Jack's throat hard enough to bruise, the other grips a thigh, pinning that leg up high. So restrained, Jack is helpless. He claws at Gabe's back with shaking fingers, each breath a ragged gasp. Then, it is all entwined flesh, and beads of sweat, and fingernails scraping, and teeth gnashing, and bodies rocking together harder and harder and harder.

Gabe has never been so violent, but he is also unusually distant, too. He won't kiss him any more, nor will he meet Jack's eyes. Jack knows something is not quite right, but his blossoming ecstasy turns each thought into senseless fireworks in his skull. Gabe's name tumbles from his twisting lips like a prayer. He tosses in his agony, each thrust undoing him a little more. And then he can be undone no further. He cums, each thread bursting forth searing hot, his whole body spasming until it is over.

Yet it is still not over.

Gabe looms over him like a monster, but the perspiration on his brow and the way his teeth are clenched in a most vicious snarl are signs to Jack that he is close, too. Even though he is weary, even though his orgasm stole the pleasure away, he rises off the floor to meet each of Gabe's thrusts with grinding hips and clenched muscles. Gabe's fingers dig so fiercely into Jack's neck that he can hardly breathe. It's so good that Jack thinks he might cum again, but then Gabe gives a final jerk of his hips. Jack feels the wetness seep deep inside of him. For a moment they stare at each other, breathless.

Gabe has a dazed, almost confused look on his face that Jack doesn't understand. He opens his mouth to ask Gabe if he's okay, to tell Gabe he's really worried about him, but then Gabe drops, panting, onto Jack's wet chest and Jack folds his arms around him. "Come on," he coos, "It's too cold to lay here. Let's dry off and get in bed."

Even though his back and thighs ache, even though his weary to the bone and his throat still throbs from Gabe's grip, Jack gets to his feet and pulls Gabe up with him. It _is_ cold; his body shivers uncontrollably as he drags Gabe back into his dark bedroom. Like a child, Gabe sits at the edge of the bed and allows Jack to towel him off and pull a t-shirt on over his head. Gabe is trembling, too, Jack notices, so he drags extra blankets from the closet and spreads them across the bed. As Jack climbs in and draws the blankets over him, Gabe sits and stares. He makes no move to join Jack. 

"Let's talk about it, Gabe," Jack says, "I can tell something is bothering you."

"You're going to follow the notes?" Gabe asks.

"What?"

"The notes! The notes I wrote!" Gabe snaps, "Future me, I mean..."

Jack _thinks_ he understands. They bicker a lot, but their last big fight, their last argument of any significance, was the one at that diner, where Jack revealed that he had kept Other Gabe's notes. So Gabe wants him to destroy the notes? Is that why he's acting so strange? "We can't risk ignoring them," Jack says. He's braced for there to be another disagreement. He fully expects Gabe to storm out. 

But, instead, Gabe pulls up the blankets and rolls underneath them, his body sliding into place beside Jack's. It's the last reaction that Jack expected, but he's relieved to have the warmth of him in bed against him. For a moment they sit in silence, Jack waiting for Gabe to talk, but Gabe never utters as much as a sigh. Jack wishes he could understand why Gabe has withdrawn like this. Is it just because he has had one of these incidents again, for the first time in many years? Or is there something else that Gabe is hiding. Whatever the reason, it's obvious that Jack won't be learning of it tonight. He gives in to his weariness and is asleep within moments, unaware of Gabe lying awake beside him, staring with unseeing eyes at the window. There is just a little bit of light coming in from the street lamps below. Normally, he can hear the hum of the city around them, but perhaps because of the weather, it is strangely quiet tonight. The storm died out at some point while they were fucking, but the glass is still wet with raindrops. He fights the urge to go step out onto the cold, wet streets and get lost somewhere. Jack's breaths are the only sound in the room, and each one makes Gabe's desire to flee more irresistible.

* * *

Jack can't tell what time it is when he wakes, except that it is still dark outside. Movement in the bed, a gentle jostling, has roused him. He gives an inquisitive sound, a soft and sleepy whimper, and he rolls over to investigate.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you," Gabe says, and he drops a hand onto Jack's head to give his hair an affectionate ruffle, like petting a dog. In his other hand is Jack's cellphone, the screen illuminating his face. Jack can tell that he looks better, even by that unflattering, dim light. There is a spirit, a liveliness, that has returned to those brown eyes; he more closely resembles the photograph of the younger Gabriel Reyes, serving as the wallpaper of Jack's phone, than he had before. "I just wanted to check the time," Gabe explains, when he sees Jack looking at the phone in his hand, "I can't find mine. Don't worry. I didn't look through your secret messages with your other boyfriend."

Jack snorts a laugh and punches Gabe in the arm. "Shut the fuck up," he says, and he scoots in closer to him, resting his cheek on the edge of Gabe's pillow, "You look like you're feeling better."

Gabe's smile falters. He puts the phone back on its charger on the nightstand, and he leans back against the headboard. His fingers still run through Jack's hair. "Did it happen again?" he asks, "It must have. Unless you're phones fucked, then I've lost almost five days."

Five days? Jack nearly repeats this out loud, but he stops himself. Five days. So that means last night...

He stares up at Gabe, but the screen from his phone has gone dark, and they are left in shadows. 

"I haven't been honest with you, Jack," Gabe says.

" _What?"_ Jack tenses. He wants to sit up, to turn on the lights, to look Gabe in the eyes, but he's still troubled by the revelation, and he isn't sure what emotions his own face might betray with the lamp on.

"It's been happening. It's happened a few times. I didn't tell you about any of them, because they were quick. A couple of minutes, then I was back to normal. I didn't want you to worry." He blurts this all out fast, as though he thinks the less he lingers on what he's saying, the less angry Jack can be over this confession.

"How many times?" Jack asks, "How long has this been happening? Did the other you do anything?" Now he does sit up, and the two men face each other, both looking grim. He isn't angry, just surprised, and a little worried, and honestly hurt that Gabe didn't trust him to tell him the truth. 

"I really don't know how many times. A dozen? Maybe a couple dozen? But like I said, it's only been quick flashes. I wouldn't think it was anything more than a seizure, if it hadn't been for that time on Route 66..."

"When we went to meet Jesse?" 

"Yeah," Gabe mutters, "After you and me had that fight, after you left, I bummed a smoke off the kid and went outside to wait for a cab. That's all I remember. I was sitting on the steps outside the diner, lighting my cigarette and waiting for the car to pull up. The next thing I know, I'm on the Orca. I have about ten million missed calls from Petras and Amari. They've both texted me a dozen times chewing me out for God knows what. You're nowhere to be found, dead for all I knew. And there, running around the ship like a damn toddler, was Jesse fucking McCree, trying to shoot a basket, as if riding in an Overwatch airship was totally normal for him. It wasn't a seizure; I knew that, then. It wasn't like I had passed out and woken up. Just one second I was standing outside blowing smoke rings and planning to beat the shit out of you when I got to the hotel, and the next second I was flying across the Atlantic and Jesse's about to knock my head off my neck with a fricken basketball. I didn't even know how the fuck I'd gotten there until a couple days later, when I told the kid I had been drunk and my memories were foggy. I asked him to tell me what had happened. Apparently I'd single-handedly taken out his whole gang, every single one of those shithead kids, and turned them in to the local police. And I'd told him he was joining Overwatch. Didn't even give him a choice. Practically kidnapped him. I finally saw that you'd been right all along."

"So you don't remember how or why you brought Jesse back?" Jack asks. After all of those initial months of jealousy, aching over how close Gabe seemed to Jesse, he almost can't believe this. "I'd always just assumed you liked him a lot."

Gabe scoffs. "Jesse was a total shithead back then. Still is."

"Well," Jack says, "I guess it all turned out okay in the end. He's been a valuable member of the team." As he says it, his mind wanders back to the bathroom counter, where he has left the list of agents he will have to fire. Jesse's name was not on the list. It's a small relief. He knows he has a lot to explain to Gabe before they go back to work on Monday.

In the dark, Gabe is studying his shredded, bitten fingernails. He doesn't remember biting them himself. "Hey," he mutters, "I know I'm not the best at apologizing for shit when I should, but... I'm sorry I didn't believe you at first. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you what was happening."

Jack smiles. He knows it is no easy thing for Gabe to show such humility. He takes Gabe's hands in his own, kissing the fingertips. "I think it might be over soon. Maybe it's over now."

"Oh, yeah?" Gabe says. He tugs his hand free from Jack's lips and wiggles back under the blankets. "What makes you think that?"

"This last time... It felt like a goodbye."

He slips under the covers besides Gabe, their heads resting together on a single pillow, so close their noses nearly touch. He has a sudden and unshakable feeling - a memory of being in his early twenties, those first nights they shared a bed together, when he could still hardly believe who he was with and where they were and how they had gotten there. 

"Good riddance," Gabe grumbles.

It occurs to Jack that maybe he should defend the Other Gabe. A day ago, maybe even an hour ago, he would have said, "good riddance," too. But after everything, Gabe had decided to help them. He could have used his knowledge of their present and his future to destroy their relationship, and to take Overwatch down with them. If he had truly wanted Jack dead, he had dozens of opportunities to get it over with. Instead, he had chosen to help. Jack wonders why. Gabe had said it was to protect Gérard, but last night...

Jack shakes his head. He doesn't want to think about last night. Things are easier if he and Gabe continue to think, simply, _good riddance._

"I love you," he says.

And Gabe responds, "I love you, too."


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, thank you so much for going on this R76 journey with me! I have appreciated every single one of your comments and kudos, and I fully plan on responding to comments now that it has ended. I didn't want to answer anything while it was ongoing because too many people were trying to guess what was happening! 
> 
> Anyway, a couple of you have expressed interest in talking to me via Discord, so I decided to do something that I never in a million years imagined myself doing. I've made a Discord server for you guys to communicate with me. I always am so happy to take requests or prompts from you guys, even if they're just kink prompts or silly things. I can't promise I'll do everything, but if there's anything you want but haven't felt like writing yourself, you can definitely throw it my way! I also thought it'd be a good place for you guys to ask me any questions or even just chat and be friendly. Plus, if you wanted to, we could always play matches with each other too (I am not very good LOL) 
> 
> So yeah, if you have requests or even just want to say hi, I can't promise it's going to be a very active place, but I would definitely love to speak to any of you who pop in! You all have been the best <3 
> 
> https://discord.gg/whwyNgt

A cloud begins to form, as pale and nebulous as tobacco smoke. It begins to condense, until it is as dark as a shadow, its tendrils shifting and swirling into some specific shape that it has in mind. Within seconds, it is blacker than a shadow, blacker than night itself, and the shape it has taken is that of a man. 

Gabriel Reyes is flung from his contented unconsciousness back into his body, his own ruined and true one. The violence of it wakes him with a scream; instead of a nightmare in his dreams, this reality is his nightmare. His legs, only an instant before having been relaxed and tangled in bed sheets, go out from beneath him. He falls face-first, collapsing in the street. 

There is a deafening crack, dry and brittle, and he shields his face from a burst of dust and pebbles with his arm.

Reaper was lucky. His fall had saved him from being pierced through the shoulder with an expertly-aimed shot of a sniper rifle. He looks up and behind him, and he catches the moonlight reflecting off a mask. He feels a tightening in his chest, a vestigial reaction from when he once had a heart, but a better sight of the masked shooter reveals one he is unfamiliar with. Not Soldier 76. It is the face of a cat watching him, obsidian and gold, the pale eyes shimmering coldly. He may not recognize the mask, but he knows that rifle anywhere. It's that bitch Amari. He grits his teeth in a scowl and pulls himself back up to his feet. The bullet may have missed, but it's been a fatal blow to his pride. His body would have regenerated. He'd rather be wounded than feeling such shame over his own clumsiness. 

The air is whipped into a roar as a helicopter rises over the tops of the buildings. His eyes fly to the machine, and he finds Amélie - no, Widowmaker, he must remind himself - crouched inside the chopper's opened body, raising her own sniper rifle to her shoulder. Despite it's constant swaying, she is taking aim at something. Not Amari. He tries to follow the nose of her rifle, imagine what she's watching through her scope, and about a block behind him, he sees a blur of red, white, and blue come around a corner. The explosive noise of the shot is swallowed by the helicopter's churning blades.

For a moment, everything around the Reaper seems to happen in slow motion. He has to think hard to remember what he had been doing before using his shadow step ability and being thrown back, for a nanosecond that had lasted four days, into another time. Running from Amari. Yes. Trying to join Widowmaker up in the helicopter. But the events of now had lost their focus and immediacy. This world, the real one, feels too much like a dream. All urgency has been drained from him; all desire to escape to the safety of that helicopter is gone. So what will he do now, he wonders. 

_"Jack called. Did the two of you get into a fight?"_

The voice, its French accent, is so clear and crisp and real that it takes Reaper a moment to realize Widowmaker is not speaking to him and could not be; she is too far and the helicopter is too loud. 

_"Something like that,"_ a second voice mutters, and he understands that this is his own voice. This is a memory from two nights ago, or two seconds ago. In the memory, Widowmaker - no, Amélie - is wearing a fluffy violet bathrobe, leaning against the island in her kitchen. He and Gérard had woken her up, stumbling in from the casino. Still rowdy and giddy from the alcohol, their pockets heavy with their winnings, he two friends were raiding the fridge when she had come up behind them. Gérard had been eating _gratin dauphinois_ from a plastic container with his bare hands while Gabe scarfed down a stale baguette, leaving crumbs down his shirt and across the counter. Confronting him about Jack, she had absolutely executed his good mood, and Gérard's laughter and the haze of inebriation felt more irritating than fun. 

" _You are behaving like a child,_ " she had said, and the disgusted look on her lovely face had silenced even Gérard. 

Reaper looks up at the helicopter, expecting to see her lips moving, expecting her to be watching him expectantly for the next line. But she has her helmet down, and is taking aim again, and _of course_ none of this is happening right now, because Gérard is dead, and she might as well be, too. 

" _How could you run off to another country without so much as a word?"_ she chided him, " _He is worried sick._ "

Reaper shakes his head. In this reality, that conversation had never really happened. That had been another man's life, not his own. Even as he tries to convince himself this, he hears Gabriel Reyes's voice, his own voice, continue the conversation, " _I don't owe him anything._ "

Amélie had sighed and shaken her head. " _Gabriel,_ " she said, " _You owe Jack_ everything."

A police siren slices through the memory. Not one, but many. Time begins to return to its normal speed of flow. The helicopter is dropping. Amélie - no, Widowmaker - fires again. He hears it, dull and distant, and glances after its path to see Amari fire back. Neither bullet hits their marks. As talented as the two snipers are, the helicopter is moving too unpredictably as it loses altitude. The Reaper thinks that the helicopter is low enough now for him to reach it. It is as simple as releasing his form, becoming shadows, and congealing together again in the space at Widowmaker's side. But he will not use this power again, not ever. He doesn't want to risk going back to that place. He doesn't want to explain to Jack why he kissed him, why he fucked him. He doesn't even know the answers to that himself. 

You owe Jack _everything_.

At the end of the street, Reaper sees the flashing lights of the police cars reflecting off the windows of the buildings. He isn't certain what he is doing or why he is doing it, but he takes off at a run, weaving between the traffic. People are screaming. People are honking. The roar of the helicopter is so loud now that he can barely hear any of it. At least it is silencing his thoughts, too, and those horrible memories. 

Reaper throws himself into an alley at the end of the block. Soldier 76 is crouched behind a dumpster, healing himself. Widowmaker's shot had not missed its mark; his right arm is pierced and dripping dark blood to the sidewalk. He needs just a few seconds longer to take care of himself. The wound will close, and the whole experience will be reduced to nothing but a tear in his jacket and some blood stained fabric. But he hasn't had enough time, yet, and when he sees Reaper round the corner, he tries to lift his gun, but cannot hold its weight. 

From above comes a sound. Man and monster both look up. Amari is perched on the building's fire escape, her rifle aimed down at the Reaper's bone-white mask.

_Fuck her_ , Reaper thinks. He wishes she would go find some other place to play superhero.

"You thought you had me, didn't you?" Soldier 76 taunts him. His voice is so changed. It is as weathered with age as Reaper imagines that his face behind that mask is. His hair is white; Reaper has known this for years, but the sight of it so colorless and thin after running his hands through that golden mess just seconds - days - years - lifetimes before makes him feel strange. Reaper wants to know if his eyes are still cornflower blue. 

At the thought, Reaper feels a sickening convulsion pass through him. It's a wave of grief so powerful that it nearly doubles him over. All that he can think about is how Jack's hands had so lovingly washed him in the tub, how Jack's mouth had melted him, how Jack's body had un-tethered him. He imagines he can still smell Jack's body wash in his own skin; he can still taste Jack's toothpaste; he can still feel Jack's love.

_I'll love you any time, any age_.

Reaper whips the shotguns from their holsters on his hips and, with shaking hands, points them at Soldier 76. He'll kill him. He'll end this right now. Then Amari will shoot him, too, and they can be corpses together. After all this time. It would be so easy. Effortless, even.

_When you go back, will you pass along a message to my older self?_ '

"It's not too late," the Reaper growls. He isn't sure if he's answering Jack's question, or if he's telling this to himself.

He hears thunder echo in his skull and feels Jack's throat struggling for breaths in his palm. He is weeping behind the mask, the tears so angry and hot that he doesn't understand how they don't eat through the material like acid. 

Reaper lets both guns drop to the pavement. He takes a step towards Jack and stumbles.

"Don't shoot!" Soldier 76 yells, and it takes a second for Reaper to realize that it isn't directed towards him, but to Amari. 

Reaper lunges at him, his hands outstretched, reaching for that throat he has now known so intimately. But instead, the black-cowled figure falls to his knees before Soldier 76. He can think of nothing but the message he was asked to pass along. For that Jack, the Jack who loved him, he will do as he was asked.

Soldier 76 reaches out and peels the mask away, flinching at the wrecked face before him. Reaper might have felt shame at that flinch, if he wasn't so lost in his own memory, trying to replay the request in his head, trying to think of how he might explain. The message was so long. How could Jack have expected him to memorize it all? Fuck him, for asking this of him! 

Soldier 76 pulls off his own mask. His eyes are still stunningly, shockingly blue. He puts a hand to Reaper's cheek, the leather of his glove cool against the disfigured flesh.

Reaper can't remember it all. He simply can't remember. 

There is only one line of the message that he recalls clearly, so he speaks it with his head held high, staring up at Soldier 76 through wet and tired eyes. 

"I'm sorry."


End file.
